


ce destin est une marée (et nous sommes emportés)

by petitepeach



Series: tarot prompts [3]
Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: (and wants to know lucas), Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Prompt Fill, and has magic, eliott wants to know the future, la belle époque, lucas reads fortunes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitepeach/pseuds/petitepeach
Summary: a belle époque au where lucas lallemant reads fortunes for a living, and may or may not be a little bit magiceliott demaury is the inheritor to a property empire, lonely and lost, and he may or may not be lucas’ destinyif you believe in that sort of thing
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Series: tarot prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1494119
Comments: 90
Kudos: 213





	1. i: a magician and a knight

**Author's Note:**

> for the tarot card prompt:
> 
> the high priestess: magic, dreams, knowledge  
> “I had this dream, and now…”  
> possible AUs/settings/ideas: visions, sold fortune, magic au
> 
> any and all historical inaccuracies are, from the bottom of my heart, my bad

_Summer 1886_

In the north end of the Paris, on the edge of the artist’s haven of Montmarte, sur le Boulevard de Clichy, you’ll find a man standing on top of a box in front of an old theatre. He’s strangely dressed, sporting a bright red suit and a top hat cast in shimmering gold. His beard is dark and neatly trimmed, a cane rests over his wrist, and a monocle dangles from his breast pocket. There’s an elegance about him that’s contrasted with a certain strangeness—it excites you. It makes you stop in your steady pace down the boulevard. It makes you perk your ears up.

“ _Venez tous! Venez tous!_ ”

You listen as the man weaves a tapestry of words and images that floats over the gathering crowd, settles across their shoulders and tickles the backs of their necks with curiosity.

_L’homme fort:_ the strongest man in all of France, capable of breaking apart stone with his bare hands.

_Les acrobates:_ a death-defying act starring a pair siblings who have come all the way from the exotic south.

_Les danseuses_ : no man alive is safe from the spell these young ladies weave as they move.

Then the man lowers his voice to a whisper. You feel yourself leaning forward involuntarily.

He tells of a new addition to their family, a young man plucked from the gutters of Paris like a rare jewel from the sewage—a young man of otherworldly abilities.

_Le cartomancien._

Every secret you hold close to your heart can be found within the folds of his cards. He knows when you will meet the love of your life. He knows the last words you will say before you die.

The man raises his voice, spreads his arms out wide.

“If you are brave enough to discover your future, mesdames et meisseurs, you can meet this young man and his magical deck of cards for the low price of _deux francs_!”

This prompts scoffs from some of the crowd. They turn away, not wanting to spend their hard-earned money on such trifles. But you, you linger there in the boulevard, thinking about your present: directionless, bleak, your father’s unchanging disappointment a phantom pain between your shoulderblades. You feel a constant thrum under your skin, an unearthly restlessness waiting to break free from its mortal confines. Your future is as murky to you as the hazy mid-summer sky, and you wonder if knowing would ease the stress at all. Perhaps knowing what lies ahead in the future would give you purpose in the present.

The coins in your pockets are heavy with implication. Father’s money, the money of land ownership and property taxes and squeezing tenants until they bleed.

The thought of using that money for something Father would look down on with such distaste makes you smile. There is victory in the small revolutions, perhaps.

You consider it. You imagine sitting at a dimly lit table, watching cards fall to the surface like leaves in the autumn before some faceless, mysterious fortune-teller, and the idea is as enticing as the sweets you used to see in the windows of Le Bon Marché when you were a child.

But then you hear a clock chime in the distance, that dreaded mark of time passing, a warning that you are risking lateness to your meeting with Father’s business partners. And so, much like the sweets, you leave the man standing on the box, the theatre and the fortune-teller, because you know this is something that will forever be out of reach.

You take a hurried step back, turning to the direction you were first headed in, and nearly collide with a young man and woman coming towards you.

You step aside, lowering your hat in apology, but the pair barely take notice of you, talking excitedly amongst themselves.

You stare as they pass.

Not at the girl. She is pretty, yes, dark-haired and with a sweet smile, but the boy.

The first thing you see is deep, oceanic blue; eyes as alluring and freeing and terrifying as the Atlantic itself.

Then you take in more details in rapid succession: a straight, elegant nose, clear smooth skin, full lips curved into an inviting smile as he says something that makes the girl hit him on the arm in retaliation, his cheeks dimpling as he laughs.

You are late, you are squandering your final chance to gain Father’s trust as the minutes tick by, but you cannot move. You are fixed to the middle of the street because you have never seen a person so beautiful that they’ve caused such a violent reaction in you: a lightning storm roaring in your veins just from the sight of them, just from the thought of stroking your fingers across their cheek.

It scares you, this rush of instant attraction, for as exhilarating as it is, as good as it is to feel so alive you could soar, your heart is heavy with the knowledge that this is something else that is wrong with you. This is something else that makes you different. Something else that ensures Father will never approve of you.

So you merely watch as the beautiful boy passes you, as he disappears into the mouth of the old theatre and becomes nothing more than a memory. A dream.

You leave quickly, now inexcusably late to your meeting, and you will yourself to forget about possibilities and overturned cards predicting futures and fate lines that can be broken, or diverted.

You may have a strong will, young Monsieur Demaury, but you forget one thing: that just because you cannot see your own future, does not mean it isn’t already in motion.

_Autumn 1888_

Lucian de la Lune is sitting at a small table, across from a man with a perfectly-groomed moustache, waiting for him to pick a card.

He doesn’t know the man’s name—he never asks for names, in order to keep client privacy. He asks only for a word, something to identify them to him when they request appointments for readings.

This man called himself Oberon.

Oberon keeps fluttering his fingers across the fan of cards spread across the table, humming under his breath, but eventually lands on one, carefully picking it up from the fan spread across the table. When he turns it over, he raises his eyebrows, dropping it back down to the table as if the thick cut of paper is slowly catching fire, threatening to singe his fingertips.

The image on the card is a cloaked figure with a lantern, one skeletal hand stretched out to an unseen, unsuspecting person. The pale messenger. The dark omen. Death.

“Death, then is it?” Oberon says with a wry smile. “My time has come?”

Lucian de la Lune sighs, tugs the sleeves of his white shirt back over his wrists. It’s silk, one of Yann’s, and it swims on him, gapes open on his neck and collarbones in a way he knows they notice, the men and women who come into his small room inside the theatre—the one shrouded in navy blue and deep purple curtains, with tall, misshapen candles alighting every available surface. All of it—the eccentric room, the loose silk shirt, his perpetually messy hair—compounds to form the image of the pretty, mysterious boy with the magic cards and all-seeing eyes. The infamous Lucian de la Lune.

“It is not as literal as that.” He says to Oberon, waving a hand out over the table. His tarnished signet ring catches in the candlelight, a muted flash of light thrown across the ceiling. “The cards never are.” He picks up Death in his left hand, flipping its face towards Oberon. “What it means by death is rebirth. There’s a change coming for you, monsieur, whether you are ready for it or not. A necessary destruction in order for rebuilding.” He flits his gaze over to the man, who is staring back at him, rapt. “Choose two more, please.”

Oberon does, with more excitement, plucking two cards from the fan quickly and laying them face up between them.

The first is five thorn-stemmed roses, all cut sharply at the bottom. Unforeseen challenges approaching. But the card is inverted to Oberon, signifying a fall, of some sort. A price paid from dishonesty.

The second is a man, hanging by the foot from a wooden post. Also inverted. A possibility for change and self-reflection, but for Oberon more likely a stagnation of the self through materialistic pursuits.

“Ah,” Lucian de la Lune murmurs. It is becoming clearer to him. He lays a finger down on a card. “The five of wands, monsieur. It is reversed to you, signifying a coming challenge. Circumstances will change, and you will need to adapt to them.” He moves his finger to the other card. “The hanged man, which is also reversed. You are stuck in the habits you have created. These are selfish habits. They have led you to a life only concerned with profit, by any means, and if you keep in these habits,” he sweeps a hand across the three cards laying between them, “ there is a chance you will lose everything.”

Oberon stares at him, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows.

Lucian de la Lune sits back in his chair, satisfied. He’d had a feeling, when the man first stepped into his room, that there was an uneasiness about him; something he couldn’t put a name to, but gave a sensation like holding a stolen loaf of bread in your hand. A forbidden sort of feeling.

Caught. Which would imply breaking the rules. Which, in turn, could imply:

Exploitation. Criminality. Fraud.

It had only been a guess, but his guesses are usually right.

_Always trust your instincts_ , _Lucas_ , Maman used to tell him. _Us Lallemants, we’re never wrong when we get a feeling about someone._

Now, the man across from him laughs, clapping his hands together in front of his chest.

“Well,” he says, grinning, chest puffed up with bravado, “that was very entertaining. But you’re not as good as they say you are, are you?” Oberon’s eyes glitter teasingly at him. “Because I can assure you, my business is secure, _mon cher_. I can assure you, I am very good at what I do.”

Lucian de la Lune shrugs, picking up the cards one at a time to place them back into his deck, their worn, fading edges smooth and familiar under his fingertips. “The cards only ever show one possibility, monsieur. One future.” He shuffles them with easy, practiced movements, letting the low hum of energy they hold seep into his hands, their hushed, ancient voices singing through his veins. “Each choice we make introduces a new future, or sends us careening towards the one we are meant to meet.” His fluid motions cease, suddenly, and he’s flipping a card over onto the table, face up.

Death.

He smiles sweetly. “You’re the one who made the appointment, monsieur. But then again,” he says, placing the deck down, “this is merely a game. Entertaining, as you say.”

An expression crosses over Oberon’s face as though he just bit into a rotten piece of fruit.

Lucian de la Lune’s smile only widens. “I believe you still owe two francs, monsieur.”

There’s a moment of silence, the two men staring at each other across the table. Then Oberon laughs, digging into his coat pocket for coins. “I think perhaps I underestimated you,” he says. “You are a rather fascinating creature.”

He slaps five coins down on the table. Nearly triple the usual rate.

“A little extra just for you,” he says, standing. “For giving me a great deal to think about.” He slips into his overcoat and smoothes down the lapel, gathering his cane and hat from the hook by the entrance. “I thank you for your time, Lucian. It was most enlightening.” He winks, tips his hat, and then disappears through the curtains.

It’s only when the curtains still, when Oberon’s footsteps recede into silence, that Lucian de la Lune exhales, rolls his shoulders away from his ears, and becomes Lucas Lallemant once again. It’s like shedding a skin, when he lets himself lose Lucian for a moment, when he doesn’t have to worry about being seen. Gone is the easy confidence, the lowered lashes and air of mystery. Instead there is only Lucas, with all of his scars and distrust.

(But here’s a secret. Lucian de la Lune is not magic, not really. Lucas Lallemant is.)

His Maman was. And her father, and his grandmother, and her great-grandmother, and so on to the very start of their name.

_The Lallemants. There is a strange energy in their veins._

But it’s a volatile kind. An all-consuming kind. The kind that made Lucas’ father fall madly in love with Maman, then abandon her when Lucas was just a boy.

It’s the kind that, as the rumours go, drove Lucas’ Maman mad, the catalyst for her running away, for her leaving a thirteen-year-old Lucas behind. It’s the kind that made her disappear. It’s the kind that Lucas grew to see as a curse more than a gift—something for him to fight against, to repress.

He used it only a little, when he lived on the streets. Just enough to survive in the slums of Paris. He distracted shop owners so he could steal food, made a policeman fall asleep in an alleyway so he could escape and one time, saved a baby bird from being run over by a carriage with a well-timed gust of wind.

He wouldn’t use it any more than that. He wouldn’t let magic overtake him like it did Maman.

It’s with a touch of irony then, that he sweeps his gaze across his surroundings, lingering on all the trimmings and trappings that are put in place to say, _magic._ The energy he so fought against, the gift that is a curse, that is the thing he makes a living from now.

He could say it was pure chance that he met Manon one day on the street, how he was at the end of the little bit of money he’d made selling newspapers, was considering professional thievery, and Manon had taken one look at him and decided he would be perfect for Hercule Barnet’s _Monde des Merveilles._ He could say it was pure chance, but another cartomancien would scoff at such a thing.

Fate. That is what drives every moment in our lives.

Maman believed in fate.

Lucas picks up one of the coins from the table and rolls it between his fingers.

Was it fate that brought him to this place? To the theatre? This room shrouded in dark curtains? Was it fate that caused him to pull at threads of his magic every day, to tell husbands if their wives are faithful, to tell young women when they’ll meet the man of their dreams, to tell businessmen if their investments will prosper and to tell those sick in love whether or not their feelings will be reciprocated? The futures Lucas saw were rarely pleasing, and were often only vague notions of intent, possibilities as thin and fleeting as smoke. He’s had people break down into inconsolable misery in his room. He’s had people react with violent anger. He’s been threatened. He’s been obsessively stalked. He’s had people try to steal his deck, convinced that the cards are cursed.

(But it’s not the cards that are cursed, it’s the boy who wields them.)

You encounter unbelievable faces of humanity, when you deal in the future.

“Lucas?”

He startles, stepping back from the table, and Daphné is poking her head between the curtains, her hair piled up messily on her head, with wildflowers braided sporadically into the strands. She smiles when she sees him.

“Do you have any more clients for the next hour or so?”

Lucas shrugs, rolling his shoulders back, trying to ease the tension at the base of his neck that’s bene plaguing him all morning. “No appointments, but there may still be some that wander in.” He knows what she’s going to ask, the same she does every Wednesday, and he gives a pre-emptive defence. “So no, I’m not coming to lunch.”

Daphné groans, waving a hand out at him. “ _Lucas_. It’s the middle of the week! And it’s freezing outside. No one’s going to come in.” She steps through the curtains, her pale-pink dress brushing against the floor as she moves. “Come with us.” She pleads, bouncing on her toes excitedly. “The girls and I had a fabulous show last night, and we’re celebrating. We want to go to that new café by the park, the one with the incredible pastries.”

Her excitement is catching, her brightness a welcome change from Lucas’s dark curtains and low lighting. Lucas feels the stirrings of a smile, but he shakes his head.

“No. Another time, Daphy.”

Daphné huffs, blowing a stray strand of hair away from her face. “You’re no fun.”

“I’m plenty of fun.” Lucas argues lightly, pocketing two of the coins from the table and holding the other three out to Daphné. “Look how fun I am: I’m giving you extra funds for your decadent lunch.”

“Oh _my_.” Daphné laughs, taking the coins from Lucas. She examines them in her own palm. “Where did you get these? Another admirer slipping you extra money under the table?”

“Perhaps.” Lucas says, busying himself with reshuffling his cards. “Use it to get yourself one of those pastries.”

Daphné eyes him over her flat palm. “Lucas, are you sure? You could keep this money for yourself.”

“I don’t want it.”

Daphné watches him intently for another moment, eyes dancing over his face, travelling down to his hands, to the cards rapidly flitting between his fingers.

“Alright.” She says eventually. She steps forward and presses a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Lucas.”

Lucas nods. He doesn’t tell her that he has no desire to take the money because it feels like being bought, in a way, like the man was attempting to stamp ownership on Lucas with a few extra pieces of change. Spending that money, to Lucas, would feel like solidifying that ownership.

He doesn’t say it, but he knows Daphné will understand anyway. They all would, all of them that perform for Barnet, who get pulled aside after their shows by wealthy patrons who bombard them with offers for lavish dinners and tickets to the opera. It’s a regular occurrence for them, and it gets all of their backs up.

Daphné squeezes his arm, the warmth and comfort in the gesture saying, _It’s alright, Lucas, you’re still your own person_. Lucas is at once infinitely grateful for her, for Manon, for everyone in the small family of strange creatures that populate _Le_ _Monde des Merveilles._

“You’re welcome,” he says quietly, the movements of his hands slowing as he returns her smile. “Enjoy your lunch.”

Another squeeze to his arm, and she’s gone, disappearing between the folds of the curtain with her pink dress trailing behind her. Lucas looks back down at his cards, his smile fading to something quiet and fond, and without thinking, he picks a card, setting it face-up on the table.

He blinks at what he sees.

A messenger with good news. A bringer of love and fortune. A romantic hero on a white horse.

The Knight of Cups.

Lucas snorts inelegantly, at the card that’s telling him a knight in shining armour is about to appear before him a sweet word and whisk him away, and places it back into the deck, shuffling the knight’s amorous eyes out of sight.

The best thing that has happened to Lucas in the last few years was being given a place in _Le_ _Monde des Merveilles._ Steady income. A place to live. Food to eat. Friends. A certain level of fame that gives him access to most corners of the city. He does not consider wishing for more than that, ever. Wishing is for fools and romantics.

Lucas shuffles the deck again and focuses, letting the energy of the cards guide his touch. He pulls out one that calls to him, loud and desperate, begging to be seen. He lays it face-up on the table, and there, again.

The Knight of Cups.

Lucas scowls down at the table, at the knight’s eyes that are painted so full of hope.

“Enough,” he says aloud, to the cards, or to the universe, to the magic in his bones and the great magnet that tugs the chains of fate along the surface of the Earth. He says it to all of them at once, slamming the deck of cards down on top of the knight. “It isn’t funny,” he whispers, but he’s not entirely sure what he means by that.

_It isn’t funny to make me look towards the door with hope, even when I know nothing will come._

_It isn’t funny to promise on things you can’t deliver._

_It isn’t funny to pretend that good things happen for no reason._

With a heavy sigh, Lucas pushes himself away from the table and out of his small room, the curtains blowing apart before him, a burst of magic erupting from the centre of his chest that’s unchecked, uncontrollable, and makes a door down the corridor slam shut.

He winces, but he keeps walking, turning a sharp right and making a direct line towards Barnet’s office, which he knows at this time of day will be unlocked, empty, and always has a fresh pot of tea sitting on his desk.

Lucas could really use a cup of tea right now. Preferably one with a strong whiskey in it.

He returns to his room slowly, balancing his cup of tea with a stack of stolen biscuits from the hidden cupboard in Barnet’s office, and he’s not paying attention to what’s in front of him. His eyes continuously drift from his cup to his feet to the biscuits and back to his feet, so Lucas doesn’t see him at all, at first. He has no idea he’s there until there’s a short clearing of a throat, a polite, “Excuse me—”, and Lucas’ head snaps up, his tea sloshing dangerously close to the rim of the cup.

He nearly drops the biscuits.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” There’s a young man stepping away from the thick curtains marking Lucas’ room, one arm stretched out as though he’s going to catch any tea that spills onto the floor, but seems to think better of that and snatches his hand back, eyes wide.

Lucas stares at him.

“I, ah…” The man fumbles his hat off his head in a clumsy grip, nearly dropping it with one hand and and catching it with the other, laughing at himself nervously. “I’m sorry,” he says again, bowing his head towards Lucas. “I was hoping to see you, but you were out when I arrived, so I…waited.”

Lucas is still staring at him. He’s staring hard, because the man before him is tall, young and handsome, very handsome, and he’s wearing a thick, expensive coat and perfectly-polished shoes, and Lucas hates it, but the first place his mind goes is to the amorous eyes of the Knight of Cups.

_Fucking great magnet. Fucking universe. Fucking cards._

The young man looks like he’s struggling to find something else to say, but Lucas is also struggling, so they stand there, staring at each other for a moment that stretches itself too long, too intimate for strangers in a dim, empty corridor.

Lucas coughs and straightens slightly, desperately grasping at the edges of his Lucian de la Lune cloak, trying to pull it over his Lucas Lallemant face that is too open and honest, too taken aback by the appearance of the man before him, so sweet-faced and honey-voiced that he may very well be from a fairy tale.

“You…” He swallows the tremors in his voice down. “Did you want a reading?”

The young man blinks at him like Lucas woke him from a deep sleep. “A what?”

“The…” Lucas gestures with his pile of biscuits to the thick curtains. “The cards. A reading for your future.”

“Oh! Oh.” The man laughs again, light and warm like a ray of sunlight, and he nods. “Yes, of course. I mean, that’s what you do! Of course.”

“Alright.” Lucas steps around him to enter into his room, quickly dropping his biscuits on the corner table, snapping his fingers to re-light the candles that went out, and taking a rushed sip of his tea to fortify himself. The sip he gets is almost entirely whiskey, which he supposes is rather appropriate, but makes him give a strangled cough. The young man follows after him slowly, carefully, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to enter into Lucas’ little world.

Lucas watches as his eyes roam over the midnight blue curtains, the dripping candles and the round table at the centre, then his eyes find Lucas again, and stay there.

“This is a wonderful room,” the man says. “It suits you.”

Lucas raises an eyebrow. He thinks, _that’s a strange thing to say when you don’t know me at all_ , but he bites back from saying it, swallowing the words down with another sip of tea, and heading right for his table.

“The price of a reading is two francs.” He says flatly, busying himself with straightening the tablecloth and shifting the candles around.

“Oh, of course!” The man plunges a hand into his coat pocket, and Lucas hears the sounds of coins rattling around in there. It’s a sign of wealth and a sign of carelessness, having so many in such an easy place to steal from.

So, wealthy yes, but perhaps newly wealthy. A recent inheritance is most likely, given how young the man looks—barely older than Lucas himself.

The man places two coins down on the table, two francs exactly, and he’s still standing awkwardly behind the other chair, his coat open and his hat in his hand. He looks like he’s halfway between sitting down and running away.

Lucas makes the choice for him. He walks around the table, hands outstretched. “Here, I will take your hat and coat. You can sit down.”

The young man nods, his nerves as palpable as the November chill in the air. His movements are jagged and uneasy, his eyes constantly shifting from the ground to Lucas’ face like he can’t decide where to look. Lucas wonders if the young man is looking for an answer to an illicit question. Maybe it has something to do with the beautiful coat in Lucas’ hands, with the money that bought that coat. Maybe this man makes his money like the man from this morning does: in the darkness. Maybe he’s unlucky in love, and he’s going to ask Lucas for help. Dozens of young Parisian men come to Lucas’s table every week with the same predicament.

Lucas is curious, and he’s rarely curious about the people that come to him.

“So,” he says at length when he sits again, reaching for his cards and giving them a quick shuffle, hastily turning the Knight of Cups back over the correct way, “what is it that you’re looking for?”

The young man shrugs, a movement startlingly contradictory to his fine coat, his elegant features and his nervous posture with its ease and insouciance. “I don’t know, really. I suppose I just…” he shrugs again, shifting in his seat, eyes fixed on the cards in Lucas’ hands, following them as they slip and fold into one another. “I suppose I’m curious about what you can see in my future. Or even in my present.”

“Hm.” Lucas sets the deck down on the centre of the table. He lays a finger on top of it. “If you have a clear question, it helps to give a clear reading. Is there anything specific you would want to know? Something to do with finances? Love?”

The young man smiles at Lucas. “Finances and love? Those are the most common inquiries you get?”

“Most people view them as the focuses of life.”

“But you don’t?”

“What I think does not matter.” Lucas replies shortly, and he removes his finger from the deck. “If there is nothing specific you’re seeking then it may dirty the waters of what I can see. Do you understand?”

The man nods. He’s still smiling at Lucas, more confidently now, his shoulders loosening from where they were sitting high around his ears, but his eyes are soft in the candlelight, pale grey-blue catching on the flickering flames.

“Very well.” Lucas murmurs. He gestures at the deck. “Shuffle those until you feel ready to begin.”

The young man inclines his head and he’s reaching forwards, ghosting his fingers across the top of the deck before touching them, as though he’s nervous to. As though he’s not sure if he deserves to touch them, just as he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to enter the room. Lucas shivers as though those long, careful fingers are hovering just above his own skin, mapping out the shape of his body.

When the young man does touch the cards, he touches them gently, reverently, his fingers smoothing across the worn edges, dancing along the intricately-patterned designs on the backs. He looks fascinated with them, as though each card is an entire world of possibility, and he would be right to think so, but he would also be the first person to sit at Lucas’ table who seems to think so.

Lucas shifts in his seat. He can’t stop watching the young man’s hands, listening to the sound of the paper under his fingertips, his own skin prickling with the phantom sensation of a touch on his own skin, and there’s a moment where his mind trips, stumbles on the thought of what it would be like to be touched like the man is touching his cards: so thoroughly and adoringly.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the flame of a candle near the floor burst into a violent, bright orange, and he bites down hard on the inside of his cheek, holding his breath until the flame returns to a low, pale yellow. He tastes blood inside his mouth.

This is not right. The cloak of Lucian de la Lune keeps slipping off of his shoulders, revealing too much of Lucas Lallemant to the confines of the small room, to the bright, piercing eyes of the young man across from him.

“I think,” he says softly, breaking into Lucas’ thoughts, “that I am ready.” He places the pile back down on the table.

Lucas takes one steady, calming breath. He avoids the young man’s eyes, focusing on the deck as he moves it to one side, then in one swift movement, spreads it into a fan across the table.

The young man makes an impressed noise, which really is unnecessary, and Lucas feels his lips curling into a pleased smile at the sound, which is equally unnecessary.

_Focus, Lallemant._

“Take a moment with the cards,” Lucas orders, waving a hand over the fan. “Find one that is calling to you, in some way, one that you feel yourself being drawn towards. When you do, take it from the pile, and lay it face up on the table.”

He expects the young man to proceed how everyone else normally does at this point, taking their time to consider each and every card, to dance their hands across the fan until eventually picking one that is chosen, they believe, at random; what they think is a split-second decision, but really is an insert of fate into their hands, forcing a choice when making one seems impossible.

But that is not what this young man does. Without hesitation he sends a hand out, fingers touching down on a card off to the left of the fan, nearly at the edge.

“This one,” the young man says, and it’s said without any doubt, so confidently that Lucas feels his own mouth dropping open slightly in surprise. Out of all the people who come into his room, out of all the desperate, future-seeking people in Paris, Lucas would never expect this young man to be the one who knows his card right away.

Is fate forcing his hand so strongly? Or is it a blind choice, one made too quickly, without any thought at all?

Then, the young man is picking the card up, he flips it over on the table, and Lucas blinks down at it.

A hand, hovering in the air, holding out a single coin.

Wealth. Prosperity. A coming successful business venture.

“The Ace of Pentacles,” Lucas says, nodding down at it. “It seems that you have had some good fortune lately, monsieur. Perhaps you’ve come into some money. Or you made an investment that has paid off.”

The young man frowns. “I suppose you could look at it like that,” he says, and Lucas is about to tell him that he doesn’t need to say anything, that he can just pull another card, but the young man says, “My father died a year ago.”

Ah. So Lucas was right about an inheritance.

“I was left ownership of some properties,” the young man says. “A few tenements. A few theatres. I lowered the rent on them, straight away, which, according to all of my advisors was a terrible decision.” He laughs, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “It would be a comfort to know I made the right choice.”

Lucas blinks. He heard about this, about some of the buildings he lives near, in the lower end of Paris, coming into new ownership. He heard about the rent being slashed in half, like magic. It’s one of the reasons Daphné, Manon and Alexia take so many luxurious lunches lately.

It doesn’t seem possible to Lucas, that the man across from him, young and nervous and with such careful hands, is responsible for that. It seems too good to be true, one of those stories they print in the papers to try and convince everyone that the wealthy _really do care_ about the poor, that when they drop their spare change into a dirty child’s hand it’s because they want to _end poverty._ It seems like…Well, it seems like.

Like he’s a fucking knight in shining armour.

There’s an uncomfortable feeling in Lucas’ chest, something fiery and bright, like the birth of a star. He rubs at his sternum absently, and he doesn’t miss how the young man’s eyes follow the motion, dipping to the place where the shirt gapes open slightly on his collarbone.

Lucas flushes. “Choose two more cards.” He says, more sharply than he means to. “We’ll see how successful that choice will really be.”

It shouldn’t surprise Lucas, what happens next. It shouldn’t surprise someone who has magic, who wields the cards and knows that fate exists, that it is a tangible force at work in the universe. It shouldn’t surprise someone who, that same day, pulled the same card twice in a row.

But the young man turns over two more cards, finding them with the same confidence and speed that he did for the first, and Lucas is so shocked by it, that he thinks he can see that candle near the floor burst into a dark purple.

The second card: A messenger with good news. A bringer of love and fortune. A romantic hero on a white horse.

Then the third: a circle with archaic symbols etched into its surface, each corner of the card occupied by a winged creature with watchful eyes. An unexpected turn of events. Fate being pushed into motion.

Lucas both wants to laugh and cry.

The young is staring at him expectantly, hunched over in his seat with his hands clasped in his lap, eyes wide and earnest. Eyes that look so much like the knight’s when Lucas meets them.

“The, um…” Lucas coughs to break the hoarseness in his voice. “The Knight of Cups.” He points at the card in question. “A messenger bringing good tidings, or a symbol of love. Your…” He pauses, and bites down on his bottom lip, trying to gather his thoughts. “Your true love, as it were. Or if not love then a friend, someone coming to aid you. Someone with your best interests at heart.”

He keeps his eyes fixed on the cards as he speaks. He can feel his face growing warm, like the burning in his chest is travelling up through his bloodstream.

“Now, the, um…the next one is the Wheel of Fortune.” He points to it in turn. “There is a shift happening. A change in your life that you can only go along with. There is no point in fighting it. It’s telling you to let the events of fate unfold, as they are already in motion.” He tilts his head down, eyes scanning the three cards. “But usually it’s a good sign, that when the wheel eventually stops, you will find yourself where you need to be. Altogether, this is a very positive reading. It’s saying that if you stay on the course you’re on, then good things will come to you, monsieur. Very good things.”

Only when he finishes speaking does Lucas glance up, checking the young man’s reaction, and once again he finds himself shocked, because the young man doesn’t look smug, like many people who get a positive reading would be. He doesn’t look excited. He’s crying. Silently and reservedly but there it is, thin tears trickling down his cheeks to his chin.

He catches Lucas’ gaze, and he laughs at himself, something Lucas is realizing is a character trait of his, immediately going for self-depreciation whenever anyone takes notice of him. He wipes away his tears, smiling softly.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his eyes moving between Lucas’ face and the cards. His cheeks are a mesmerizing shade of pink. “I…don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s fine,” Lucas says softly. The cloak of Lucian de la Lune is pooling at his feet, fallen completely away from his body, and it is just Lucas Lallemant sitting there, fighting the urge to cover the young man’s hand with his own. To soothe. To comfort. “Many people cry during their readings.”

“I suppose it’s that I haven’t had very much good news lately.” The man’s smile takes on a melancholic shape, his eyes low. “It is…a bit overwhelming, when you’re in the dark, to have someone telling you eventually you will find light.”

Lucas doesn’t know what darkness a man like the one across from him could experience. Born wealthy, coming into an inheritance, strangely beloved by his tenants, gifted with a beauty that makes Lucas’ breath catch. What darkness could such a person face?

The tenderness that was blooming in Lucas’ heart is battling with bitter argument, with the desire to bite out, _Have you ever slept on the street, monsieur? Stolen scraps for your meals? Have you ever had to sell everything you own, then be faced with selling yourself?_

But the bare face he’s wearing must say some of that for him, as the young man frowns, his brow furrowing.

“I am sorry,” he says again, rubbing a hand through his hair, mussing the neat strands. “You must have no wish to hear the worries of businessmen.”

“I hear them every day,” Lucas says. “It’s my job.”

The young man shakes his head. “It’s your job to tell people what they hope for, is it not? To give reassurance.”

Lucas leans back in his chair, crossing his arms. “I don’t give anything,” he says, a touch tartly. “The cards are chosen by you. I only interpret them.”

“Well.” The young man runs a finger across the Wheel of Fortune card, tracing the edges of the image. “I think you are magic.”

The word makes Lucas balk for a moment, his fingers clenching at the sleeves of his shirt, but the man doesn’t look accusatory when he says it, doesn’t look like he means it any way other than innocent, the way a child might when they see a snowfall on Christmas.

_Magic_.

“Well,” Lucas says, propping his elbows on the table, mimicking the man’s tone. “I think you are a romantic.”

The man grins. “Is that a bad thing to be?”

Lucas tilts his head from side to side, humming. “It is not a practical thing to be.”

“But it’s necessary, don’t you think?” The man asks, his voice so soft it floats across the table like feathers. “To have love and beauty and romance in times like these? To have sweet things to live for?”

Lucas’ voice comes out as steel. “Many people can’t afford to live for sweet things. They live only to survive.”

The man is quiet at that,chastised, considering Lucas with those bright eyes. Lucas doesn’t shy away from his gaze. He lets his words hang between them, lets them resonate with this lovely, sheltered person, with his money and prophesied success.

“You’re right.” The man huffs a breath and leans back. “It is a naïve outlook, I know. One based only in privilege.” He squints down at the table. “And in ignorance. In not knowing enough about the world. But that is something about myself I’m trying to change.”

“The desire for change is good,” Lucas says. “But it’s the embracing of its reality that is important.” He picks up the three cards on the table and returns them to the deck, shuffling the fan together in his hands. He’s frustrated by how intrigued he is by this man, how his pretty words are piercing so deeply into Lucas’ head. He can’t remember the last time he wanted to get to know someone so badly, to uncover all of their secrets, to sink beneath their chest and see their heart for himself, to taste the heavy beating of it.

His hand slips, and a few cards spill onto the floor.

Lucas curses under his breath, and the man dives down, retrieving the cards from the floor. He brushes each one off carefully, stacking them back into a neat pile to hand to Lucas.

When Lucas takes them, his fingers brush against the man’s. Only for a moment, the briefest touch of skin against skin, but it’s enough to make Lucas’ skin flare up, the place they touched burning as brightly as that place deep in his chest. Lucas snatches his hand away, holding the cards close to himself like they can protect him from the dizzying sensation of those warm, gentle fingers pressed against his own.

Lucas is about to open his mouth to order the man to leave, because there’s only so much he can take of this enthralling, endearing young man who may or may not have been foretold as a knight in shining armour to Lucas, a literal romantic hero sweeping into his midnight-blue room with bight eyes and the outlook of a poet. It should be hilarious, this storybook person who has come to life, so completely different from everything Lucas is, but more than anything, it’s overwhelming. It’s exhausting to be in the same room as him.

“Can I ask you something?” The young man is standing at the side of the table, his fingers spread wide on the top of it.

Lucas narrows his eyes. “I suppose."

“Lucian de la Lune. That isn’t your real name.”

Lucas snorts, setting the deck down again. “Of course it isn’t.”

“Will you tell me your real name?”

It’s not the first time someone has asked Lucas this, so he has his standard answer ready: a flat, apathetic, “No.”

The man nods like he was expecting this. He presses one hand against his chest, over the burgundy tie knotted there. “I’ll tell you mine.”

Lucas raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t ask for yours, did I?”

“No,” he says on laugh. “You didn’t, but I would like you to know it.”

Lucas shrugs instead of protesting. He never asks for client’s names, ever. Because it makes them feel secure and he really doesn’t care, but he doesn’t tell this young man, not to tell him, because there’s a corner of his mind where he thinks he really wouldn’t mind knowing.

“It’s Eliott. Eliott Demaury.”

He says it nervously, as nervous as he was when he first entered the room, and Lucas bites back on a smile as he stands from his chair.

“Well, Monsieur Demaury,” he says pleasantly, “thank you for coming today. I hope your fortune was to your liking.” Standing so close to him, within the confines of his room, Lucas becomes at once aware of how much taller Demaury is than him. Lucas has to tilt his head back slightly to meet his eyes.

“It certainly was.” Demaury replies, just as courteously. “Thank you, _Monsieur de la Lune_.” He draws the name out with a smile, and Lucas shoots him a withering glance as he fetches his belongings from the rack by the entrance.

Lucas watches as Demaury slips into his fine coat, clasping his hat between his hands and looking all the part of a gentleman—the sort of man Lucas would expect to see at the opera, or dining at Foyot. He does not look like the sort of man who would cry from hearing there is good news in his future.

Demaury lingers by the entrance to Lucas’ room, scuffing one polished shoe against the floor and fiddling with his hat, and Lucas finds he doesn’t mind. He’s not sure if he wants him to leave either. He thinks he might want him to stay around, to discover if he really could be the knight in the cards. If there’s some part of him that could be meant for Lucas.

But there’s the sound of laughter at the end of the hall accompanying heavy footsteps, and Demaury startles, turning towards Lucas to make a clumsy bow, placing his hat back ono his head.

“Thank you,” he says. “Again. I…well, I hope to see you again. Sometime.”

“You could always return for another reading.” Lucas says, following Demaury outside of the room. He stops in the doorway, holding the curtain aside and clenching the thick velvet in his hand to centre himself, to make his voice even. “Perhaps your future will change.”

Demaury smiles, head tilting down towards the floor. He sticks his hands in his pockets, a boyish gesture at odds with his gentlemanly exterior. “I really hope it doesn’t change, actually. But…I suppose it is good to check, isn’t it?”

Lucas bites back a grin. “Yes, it is.”

“Alright.” Eliott takes a step backwards, turning on the spot. “Then I will, um…yes. Alright. Yes. Have a…pleasant day, Lucian.”

It comes out before Lucas even thinks of it, the desire to hear his own name in that honeyed voice overpowering the practical, rational side of his brain like an oceanic wave.

“Lucas,” he says quietly. Demaury whirls back towards him, mouth open in surprise. “You may call me Lucas.”

“Lucas,” Demaury says, and his mouth holds the letters are carefully and reverently as he held the cards, as though he’s not sure he’s allowed to touch such things. 

Lucas is holding the curtain so tightly now he thinks there may be a real possibility he will rip it down. The burning in his chest has spread into his entire body, humming with something that feels a bit like magic, but also feels entirely separate from it.

“Have a pleasant day, Lucas.” Demaury whispers, and he’s smiling so sweetly at Lucas, his eyes crinkling, that Lucas lets one out in return. Just one small smile, only for one moment.

“Have a pleasant day, Monsieur Demaury.” He replies, and he watches as Demaury turns away, taking a few steps down the hallway before turning back towards Lucas, huffing a laugh when his eyes land on him and turning once again, towards the entrance of the theatre, and he disappears from sight, his footsteps swallowed up by the sounds of laughter and excited voices as people come and go within the theatre, searching for entertainment or searching for their future or searching for the very thing they did not know they would find.

Lucas exhales and steps back into his room. It feels different in there after Demaury, like the room itself is holding memory of his shape, of his presence. Lucas goes to the corner table and knocks back the rest of his tea, the remaining whiskey a welcome burn in his throat. He takes a large bite from a biscuit and chews slowly, thoughtfully, paces a circle around the room like he’s walking in a dream.

He stops in front of the round table, where the deck of cards sits like a northern star, pulling him forwards, leading him somewhere he cannot see.

He pops the rest of the biscuit into his mouth and picks the deck up, shutting his eyes and he shuffles, letting the energy of the cards guide every movement, every brush and slide of paper against paper. It’s a whirlwind of sensation behind his eyes, sounds and colours and feeling, but then there’s _ah,_ there’s something, and Lucas plucks out a card, dropping it down onto the table.

He opens his eyes.

Not the Knight of Cups. Not what he was, possibly, expecting.

But the very thing he should have been expecting.

A circle with archaic symbols etched into its surface, each corner of the card occupied by a winged creature with watchful eyes. An unexpected turn of events. Fate being pushed into motion.

The Wheel of Fortune.

A laugh bursts out of Lucas, one that’s long and lingers and is full of wonder rather than spite, tapering off to giggles that shake his shoulders.

He sighs, running a finger along the card the same way Demaury did, as though touching the same edges of the wheel will feel like touching Demaury’s hand again.

“I see you’ve given up on subtlety altogether,” Lucas says. He says it to the cards, to the universe, to the magic in his bones and the great magnet that tugs the chains of fate along the surface of the Earth. He says it to all of them at once.

He lets out another laugh, at the impossibility of it all, at the wheel staring back at him so intently from the table, promising changes Lucas himself could never have predicted.

_We are in motion._


	2. ii: lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yann blinks, closes the door, and says, “I don’t even want to know.” He steps further into the room and mutters to himself, “What is it about Christmas that makes everyone turn strange?”
> 
> a fluffy, sappy holiday sequel, where friends gather together, glasses of cheer are poured, and a storm arrives at the perfect moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cannot stress enough how utterly schmaltzy this is. like, why hasn't hallmark hired me yet - but a few of you were asking about a sequel to the fortune teller fic, and i knew i couldn't leave this world just yet, so here we are, at christmas
> 
> this is also inspired by the tarot card prompt "the sun," one of a few requested by anon, and i will fill the other separately, but i thought this was a nice fit for the feeling i wanted in this fic:
> 
> the sun: joy, friendship, prosperity;  
> "i'm so happy"  
> possible AUs/settings/ideas: friends to lovers, love realization, coffee shop
> 
> enjoy!

_Winter 1888_

In Paris, winter is like falling in love.

It comes all at once, a wave that surges over you in the course of the night, that has you leaving the warm comforts of your bed in the dark, early hours of the morning, wandering to your window, rubbing dreams from your eyes and realizing that now, the world looks completely different.

Lucas Lallemant crosses his bedroom floor before dawn, haunted by a nightmare that curls cold fingers around his wrists and ankles, trying to yank him back into bed, back into the depths of his mind, but he fights to keep his eyes open, grips onto the railing at his window tightly and lets the frosted iron pinch freezing cold into his skin. It’s a dream he’s familiar with now, one filled with hands pulling and prodding at him, trying to get him to use his magic like a trained animal, all while a man watches from the shadows, no features on his face discernible other than an unnaturally wide and bright smile.

Maman used to say that every dream has meaning, that there are things buried within your mind that can only surface under the cloak of night, so strange and shapeless they are. They scratch at the back of your eyes with a desperation to be seen, to be understood, but when you jolt awake violently in the darkness, they fade to nothing more than a morning fog, long disappeared by the time the sun hangs high in the sky.

And this dream, well. Lucas has had this dream for years. It’s an old fear Maman instilled in him when he was just a boy. A fear of what would happen if anyone were to ever find out. About them. About him.

He grips more tightly to the railing, presses his forehead against the freezing glass and focuses on breathing. He pictures a great tree in his mind, one strong and ancient, and focuses all of his energy on the sway of its branches, the gnarled knots protruding from its sides.

He focuses on it until his breathing comes slowly and steadily, until his shoulders have lowered from his ears, until he can no longer see the man’s wide and bright smile at the corners of his vision.

Inhale. Exhale.

It’s quiet inside his building, too early yet for the usual morning chorus of clamping boots and laughter, of some people just beginning their day and others just ending theirs. There’s a constant smell of liquor in the building, as though someone has just spilt a glass of brandy and someone else is pouring a fresh one. The floors creak incessantly, there are rats on the lower levels and running water indoors is still something of a dream, but it’s a home. It’s a home and it belongs to Lucas alone. Or at least, the small bedroom and kitchenette belong to him.

Lucas opens his eyes, and his vision is blurred, his warm breath fogging against the glass. He smears it away with a hand, and that’s when his eyes land on the thin blanket of white beyond the glass.

Snow.

Bright and glittering, reflecting the flickering flames of the gaslights back into the sky and casting the waning night in a pale glow. It makes everything look soft and dream-like, as though Lucas has stepped directly from a nightmare into another uncanny world, but one that wants to soothe rather than terrify. One that beckons Lucas into childlike wonder, like the Christmas displays in department stores.

Maman always loved Christmas, and she always tried to make it memorable for Lucas, even when they barely had enough money for housing. She would scrape together enough food for a decent Christmas dinner, or she would stay up late into the night to make a gift for Lucas: a handsome wooden solider in a strikingly-painted uniform, a hand-drawn deck of tarot cards, each crafted with an air of awe and mystery.

After Maman disappeared, Lucas sold nearly every one of their possessions in order to afford food and lodging, but he never sold those gifts. He justified it to himself that he wouldn’t get much for them, their worth more sentimental than monetary, but the wider truth of it is he could never part with them.

And now, twenty years old and making a living all on his own, they remain with him. The solider stands on his bedside table, worn wooden face pointed towards the door to Lucas’ room. The tarot deck never leaves his side.

His breath has created another cloud on the glass and he wipes it away impatiently, enthralled by the dance of light across the even layer of snow.

 _Maman, you would adore this_ , he thinks, and he smiles a little.

It aches to think about her, especially during Christmastime, when hymns of kindness and joy flood the streets from the doors of the churches, but it aches in a way that he likes, a way that reminds him that he feels. That Lucas Lallemant is a person with love existing inside of himself, not just a boy who’s been worn away by the tide of life like a stone in the sea.

He wonders if he were to pull a card for himself right now, what it would be.

Would it be the Wheel of Fortune? The persistent promise of fate catching Lucas up in its grasp and carrying him to a destination he can’t even conceive of?

Or, would it be…

The smile on Lucas’ face twitches. He huffs out a breath that spreads fog across the glass once again.

He doesn’t wipe it away. Instead, he draws a small letter inside it’s confines, a capital _E_ , in a loose, looping cursive. He stares at the letter for a moment, eyes tracing over the curves of it like he could see the silhouette of a body or the lines of a face painted in its shape.

He stares until there’s a commotion outside of his door, two voices laughing and two sets of feet clambering up the stairs, and only then does Lucas fold his sleeve over his hand to clear the fog away from the window.

The letter is gone, but the soft touch to Lucas’ smile remains as he heads for the wash basin in the kitchenette.

He wonders if he’ll see him today.

He does.

It shouldn’t be surprising. Eliott Demaury comes every Friday now, always first thing in the morning and always with an eager and excited face, waiting outside of Lucas’ fortune telling chamber with his hands clasped neatly behind his back, until Lucas pokes his head out and rolls his eyes, telling him he doesn’t have to wait, he can come inside as soon as he arrives.

This scene they play is familiar ground to Lucas, a script he can easily follow without letting his thudding heart make itself known, without letting his eyes linger too long over Demaury’s face, over the breadth of his shoulders beneath his thick coat or the bones of his elegant hands as he pulls off a pair of leather gloves, stuffing them into his pockets.

Demaury shakes his head at Lucas’ reminder, removing his hat and dusting a thin layer of snow off the top of it. “I could never do that,” he says softly. Lucas holds a hand out for his hat and his coat, and he passes them over, stumbling a bit on the carpet. “This is a sacred place.”

Lucas snorts, hanging Eliott’s coat onto the iron coat rack by the entrance. “You do know we’re inside a theatre, don’t you Monsieur Demaury? The home of Hercule Barnet’s performing troupe? I can assure you, this place is the furthest thing from sacred.”

“No. Well, of course, this is a wonderful theatre, but I mean _here_.” Demaury punctuates his statement by reaching a hand up, gently trailing it along the edge of a midnight-blue curtain. “This is your place. So, it is special.”

Lucas stares at him from beside the coat rack, frozen to the floor with his hands flat at his sides, watching as Demaury trails his hand along the length of the curtain, smiling around the room as he steps further inside, as though he’s being welcomed home after a long trip away.

He has a way of saying these things, Demaury does. Things that are sweet in their softness, and burning in their intimacy. Things that someone would say to someone they cared for. Someone they had feelings for.

Lucas is not entirely sure Demaury is aware he’s doing it, but with every poet’s word that comes out of his mouth, Lucas feels himself fall further beneath the surface of a sea he’s already struggling to stay afloat in.

The sea of Eliott Demaury. A sea full of emotions and possibilities that Lucas never thought possible for himself. A sea that is so foreign to him, in how it longs to drown him in its embrace. These are calm waters that mask a deep and terrifying depth.

He wishes the cards could tell him what lies inside of Eliott Demaury’s heart, why he says these poet’s words to Lucas without a thought. But there is nothing they can tell him that he doesn’t already know. Hearts are opaque and the future is as thin as butterfly wings. Nothing can be seen except the next choice.

Lucas takes a slow step away from the coat rack, clearing his throat to gently nudge Demaury from his wandering pace.

Demaury turns towards Lucas with a sheepish smile.

“Well,” he says, giving his own contrived cough. “What does my future look like today?”

They sit down on either side of Lucas’ round table, both silent while Eliott shuffles the deck the way he always does: carefully and reverently, eyes focused intently on the shifting cards.

When Lucas spreads them out into a fan on the table, Eliott chooses his three the way he always does: quickly and confidently, his fingers barely fluttering atop the cards before he’s choosing them, laying them down in a neat line before Lucas.

They both laugh when Lucas turns over the first card, Demaury with a touch of wonder, Lucas with a touch of irony, both of them staring down at the earnest face of the Knight of Cups.

“Your card,” Lucas says with a sigh. “It seems determined not to abandon you.”

“I’d hardly say that’s a bad thing, right?”

Lucas nods. “Since it keeps appearing, time and time again, I would take it to mean you’re on the path you are meant to be on. Perhaps the Knight is you, or perhaps he is a guide for you, showing you which course of action to take.”

The second option sounds flat, even to Lucas’ own ears, which are burning from the sight of the same card he himself picks whenever his mind stumbles towards Eliott Demuary of its own accord.

Demaury looks pleased. He squints down at the card.

“Hm. Do you think he looks a little bit like me?”

“The next card—” Lucas interrupts him sharply, his voice akin to a thunderclap in the soft, dim room, hurriedly turning over the second card without meeting Demaury’s eyes. “The Ace of Cups. Hm. Sticking with that suit today. Alright.”

Lucas presses a finger into the card, in the centre of an image of a gold chalice being held up by a hand. There are blooming flowers sporadically dotted along the length of the hand and its wrist, as though they’re bursting out of its skin.

“So, it seems as though there’s…” Lucas waves a hand out. “Something you’ve been hoping for. Something new. A change of some sort. Yes?” He glances up at Demaury, who is biting down on his lip, eyebrows furrowed together.

He nods slowly. “I suppose you could call it that.”

“Well, this card, and the presence of your constant companion the Knight of Cups, is telling me that whatever this change, this new beginning or this hope is, that it’s going to come to you. I think…” Lucas trails his eyes over the first card. “It longs to come to you, just as you long for it.”

Across the table, Demaury is utterly silent.

Lucas turns over the last card.

Nearly the entire face of the card is taken over by a pale orange sun, with waving streams spreading out from its body, disappearing into the furthest corners of the card. Along these streams are small words, phrases in archaic French that are barely discernible, their ink so faded from sight.

Lucas’ mouth twitches.

“The Sun,” he announces, touching his fingertip to a corner of the card. “I was right about you being on the path you are meant to be on, Monsieur Demaury. This is a card of positivity. It reinforces the strength of the Ace of Cups,” his finger drifts over to the card in question, “and the idea of this new beginning. This thing that you’ve been hoping for. There is such joy in store for you.”

Demaury looks nervous, somehow. Like this is both what he expected to hear, and what he was dreading. It’s a strange expression on him.

Lucas hand rises from the table, his chin dropping into his palm, elbow pressing into the purple tablecloth. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone come into this room who has such consistently positive readings. It seems the universe is determined to see you happy.”

Demaury’s eyes are low on the table. “I don’t know about that. It’s only one future, right? One possibility based on the choices I make.”

Lucas shrugs. “It appears that you’re making the right choices.”

At this, Demaury gives the slightest smile.

“I can only hope,” he says.

Demaury gathers himself up in the same way he always does, checking the silver watch tucked into the pocket of his waistcoat and making note that it’s almost ten, and he really must be going or he’ll be late for some meeting that sounds horribly tedious and inane.

It’s Lucas’ guess that Demaury is someone who is often late for meetings. In the spring, he probably stops to smell flowers. In the summer, taking the long route to see the river. In the winter? He’ll probably drop to the middle of the road to make an angel in the snow.

He pays the usual two francs, and he accepts his coat and hat from Lucas, hovering by the entrance to the room like he always does, taking one last, lingering look before dipping between the folds in the curtains.

Lucas expects Demaury to leave like he always does, with a few sweet words and a parting smile, but today, he stops, taking a step closer to Lucas and wringing his hat between his hands.

“Lucas,” he says, and his voice is very serious.

Lucas raises an eyebrow.

“I have something I’d like to ask you,” Demaury continues, in the same sombre tone, as though he’s reciting tragic news from the papers. “I…I don’t want to be presumptuous, and I really have no indication that this is something you desire, other than well, my own hope, I suppose. Because it’s something I desire, certainly, but that is no reason for me to ever expect…well, to expect anything. It is my last wish to make you uncomfortable ever, and I am unsure of how these things work, when I am technically a client of yours but I also believe us to be friends? Unless that is something you do not think at all, in which case I am likely going to make a fool myself, that is if I have not already made a fool of myself, because I’m becoming increasingly aware of how long I’ve been talking for, when I haven’t even—”

“ _Eliott_.”

Demaury stops short, blinking rapidly at Lucas, his mouth dropped open into a small _o_.

It takes Lucas, who is simultaneously very amused and very worried by whatever is happening in front of him, to realize that, for the first time, he's called Demaury by his first name.

There’s a beat where they just stare at each other, then Demaury takes a deep breath, his entire body expanding with it, and he says, very softly:

“Would you like to have Christmas dinner with me?”

And that.

Lucas has no idea what he was expecting Demaury to say, when he began his elaborate speech, but he never. He didn’t think it would be _that_.

His shock renders him speechless, the only word that able to come out of his mouth a faint, disbelieving, “What?”

Demaury, his face a bright pink and his hat so tightly held in his hands it seems like the brim may snap, looks like he wants to flee from the theatre rather than repeat himself, but he takes another breath, his shoulders rising, and he starts again.

“Would you like to—”

Only, there’s a voice calling at them from down the hall, and before Lucas can properly identify the voice there is a hand at his shoulder, a body knocking into his and there’s the smell of rose and jasmine in the air and there are Manon and Daphné, coming upon Lucas and Demaury like a pair of fairies, their dresses swishing against the floor and their giggles high and melodic, but instead of bringing magic with them, it feels a little bit like they’re taking some away.

Demaury, for his part, looks resigned.

“ _There_ you are!” Daphné crows, ruffling Lucas’ hair with one hand. “I was wondering where you disappeared to after breakfast.”

Next to her, Manon rolls her eyes. “I tried to tell her. You always come straight here on Friday morning, because that’s when you have that—” She stops short at the warning sound Lucas makes in the back of his throat, sending her his best glare over Daphné’s shoulder, his eyes flicking over to Demaury for a brief second, then flicking back to her.

“ _Oh_ ,” Manon mouths, turning to face Demaury and breaking into a wide smile when she sees him. “Oh, it’s Eliott!”

Daphné gasps, now noticing him as well. “Eliott!”

Lucas frowns. “You know Monsieur Demaury?”

“He’s our landlord!” Daphné says happily, before the girls are crushing Demaury into a hug.

Oh. Lucas forgot that he did know that. The landlord that Manon and Daphné can’t stop signing the praises of. That one who lowered their rent and installed plumbing. The one who might as well be a knight in shining armour.

Lucas knew that they were acquainted but he didn’t think they were…friendly with him.

He has no word for the feeling that courses through his body at the sight of Demaury folded in an embrace between Manon and Daphné, his shocked but pleased face hidden in the curls of their hair. It’s a sour sort of feeling that churns unpleasantly in his chest. It’s a feeling that makes him want to drag Demaury back inside of his room, away from the rest of the world.

(There actually is a word for this feeling. Lucas just refuses to use it.)

“How are you, Monsieur Demaury?” Manon asks sweetly when they part. “Sorry if we surprised you there! I think we’re just not used to seeing you anywhere except for the tenement.”

“I don’t mind,” Demaury says with a smile. “And I’m very well, thank you. How are you? How are the performances?”

“Spectacular as always.” Daphné laughs, twirling on the spot. She gasps suddenly, gently hitting Demaury across the arm. “Which you should be attending! If I had known you were already coming here for fortune readings, I would have forced you to come see us long ago!” Her eyes slide over to Lucas, and she grins. “We can’t have Lucian de la Lune keeping you all to himself.”

Lucas tampers down the urge to stick his tongue out at her like a child.

Demaury’s face is still pink, but Lucas can’t tell if it’s lingering from his conversation with Lucas, or from the presence of the girls, or from this entire interaction, that has taken on a madcap quality, like something from a comedic play. An unexpected meeting in an unremarkable place that foils a romantic attempt.

Not that Lucas thinks Demaury was trying to be romantic. Not at all.

The thought, _But I can hope_ , comes unbidden into Lucas’ mind like a surprise guest and takes up residence there, opening drawers and turning over sheets, permeating everything inside with its scent, with its presence.

It overtakes him entirely.

_But I can hope._

Lucas knows he is a person with love still existing inside of him, but he did not think he was a person still in possession of hope, of any kind. That is something new.

He thinks of The Sun, of the card sitting back on the table in his room, facing up to the ceiling with its faded words that only Lucas and Maman know.

_There exists a joy in this world that can always find you. If only you let yourself be found._

He tunes back into the conversation, where Daphné is excitedly describing the Christmas dinner they have planned, which so far consists only of some plans for desserts and copious amounts of alcohol.

“Ah.” Demaury laughs softly. “That does sound ideal.”

“Except we’re having difficult finding food,” Daphné says with a huff. “We have some money this year, finally, but we’re a large party of people, and the shops are starting to run out.”

“Well, I…” Demaury says hesitantly, eyes flicking over to Lucas for a moment, an unreadable expression passing over his face. “If you like, you could all come to my house.”

Lucas’ head swivels so quickly towards Demuary that he feels a twinge in his neck.

Daphné gasps. “Really?”

“Yes, of course. I’d love to have you.”

Manon is frowning. “Oh, Eliott, that’s incredibly generous, but _all_ means ten of us. We couldn’t ask you to host and prepare food for that many people when Christmas is only two days away.”

Demaury shakes his head, a smile blooming across his face. “It’s no trouble at all, actually. It’s only myself and Jacques, Étienne, and Mathilde in the house now, and we always make far too much food for the four of us. Also Jacques is good friends with the owner of the food shop closest to us. I’m sure he can gather a few more things without issue.”

As much as Lucas feels warmed by the idea of a large, decadent meal, as intrigued as he is by the idea of being able to see inside Demaury’s home, as hopeful as he is at spending an entire evening with him, he’s not sure of how good an idea this is either, and he’s stepping in, ready to make an argument, but before he can, Demaury is speaking again.

“Please?” He asks. “Jacques and Mathilda will be delighted to cook for so many people. They haven’t had the chance to in years.”

There’s something in that plea, some truth tucked between the sentences that speaks ofloneliness, of isolation, and it pierces Lucas’ heart like a knife point. Whatever arguments he was going to make die on the tip of his tongue. He can see the hopeful expression on Demaury’s face, can see how his eyes keep drifting over to him, and he’s reminded of another card, of a golden chalice and flowers blooming from beneath the skin.

A new beginning. Something you’ve been hoping for.

It occurs to Lucas, for the first time, that Eliott Demaury may be someone with very few friends.

So, when Daphné says, “Thank you, Monsieur Demaury,” and, “We’ll be there on Christmas Day,” Lucas only adds:

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Demaury just smiles.

Christmas Day, when it comes, brings with itself a storm.

(The storm is a real storm, and it’s also a metaphor, but neither iteration of it arrive just yet.)

When Lucas wakes up on Christmas morning the air is thin and frosty, but they sky is a clear blue. From the streets below he can hear the sounds of joyful chatter, of excited greetings and carolling amidst the chiming of the church bells.

He wraps himself in a blanket and fixes a pot of tea, watching the water boil with half-open eyes, so latched to the remnants of a half-finished dream that, for a moment, he forgets that today he has dinner plans with Eliott Demaury.

Well, he and Manon and Daphné and Yann and Imane and Idriss and Alexia and Emma and Arthur and Basile. And the few household staff members Demaury mentioned. And anyone else who may happen to stumble upon this Shakespearean cast of characters.

The entire endeavour has a surreal quality to it, has had since the moment Demaury suggested the dinner to Manon and Daphné, and Lucas had watched in silent astonishment as that invitation had seized the three of them with an excitement that, honestly, Lucas had not been expecting.

He certainly would never want to dine with his landlord. And he doesn’t know of any landlords who would wish to dine with their tenants.

(Of course, by now there is the distinct impression that Eliott Demaury is not like other landlords. Not like anyone, really.)

Lucas didn’t offer to contribute to the dinner plans, and had not been asked to contribute. He almost thought the three of them, in their excitement, forgot he was there, which he was completely fine with. From his vantage point at the edge of their little circle, he could quietly watch the way Demaury’s eyes caught on the low light in the hallway, how they widened at a story Manon told of a disastrous Christmas party from a few years ago, how they crinkled at the sides when he laughed at something Daphné said.

Those eyes. Clear and bright, constantly changing in colour but steadfast in their sincerity. So stuck in Lucas’ mind that they’ve been finding their way into his dreams.

His kettle billows a cloud of angry white steam at him, shuddering atop the stove and Lucas is jolted out of his reverie. Instinctively, he reaches out to grip the handle of the kettle, and lets out a pained cry when the hot iron burns his skin.

But then the sharp burning pain is gone, replaced with shocking cold, and Lucas looks down to see the entire kettle has frozen in his grip, covered in a thick layer of ice. He drops it to the stove and the layer of ice cracks, a few shards bouncing off of the stove, scattering across the floor.

Lucas stares at it, his breath uneven, shoulders trembling.

As long as Lucas has been aware of his gifts, he’s been fighting to avoid this very thing: magic that’s unpredictable, reactionary, ruled by feeling. He hasn’t done anything like this since he was a boy. And back then, it was under the watchful eye of Maman, with her gentle yet firm words in his ears: _Do not let it control you, Lucas._

He’s unnerved by it. He doesn’t know what else to do, other than reach for his cards.

His shuffle is clumsy, rushed, and instead of a card making itself known to the pads of his fingers, whispers sinking into his skin, one falls from his hands, fluttering to the floor like an autumn leaf.

He stares down at the Wheel of Fortune, which in turn stares back up at him.

_Let the course of fate unfold. You are on the right path. Everything that’s happening will you lead you somewhere you are meant to be._

_Lucas_ , the card is saying, _let it go. Let yourself fall._

Lucas sighs. And he always thought he was stubborn.

(But he forgets. Fate has been forcing the hands of people far more stubborn than Lucas Lallemant for as long as the Earth has existed.)

“Fine,” he says aloud, to himself, to the card, to the bells still ringing outside of his window, to the great magnet itself, spinning on its axis in glee. “Fine,” he repeats, and he picks the card up, returning it to the deck and setting it down on the bedside table, next to his steadfast wooden solider.

“I have a dinner invitation,” he tells the solider, propping his elbows up on the table. “With a man who may or may not be a knight, and may or may not be fated, but is absolutely very, very wonderful.”

The solider says nothing. Lucas leans in closer.

“What would you do?” He whispers to the solider. “If there was someone like that being pushed in front of you? Someone who makes you feel like you’re an entire storming sea? Would you run away? Or would you give in?”

Lucas touches a fingertip to the solider’s head. Slowly, very slowly, his painted-on eyes blink, his head tilts up to him on his broad, wooden shoulders.

“It is not giving in,” the solider says in a voice that’s worn with disuse, rough at the edges like bark on a tree. “It is not giving in,” the solider repeats, and it takes him an entire minute to form a sentence, the words coming to him like he has to search for them in a cobwebbed chest before he can pluck them out and use them. “It is only life,” the wooden solider says. “It is only love.”

“ _Only_ ,” Lucas echoes dubiously.

“As forgiving as the springtime as easy as a drop from a mountain,” the wooden solider says.

Lucas smiles. He feels so much like a boy again, whispering to his wooden solider in his bedroom, asking him every question he can think of. “When did you become such a poet?”

“Some things are just true,”the wooden solider replies, and his painted-on eyes blink and then they rest, staring blankly into the middle distance, just over Lucas’ shoulder, and he is stoic once again.

Lucas is still smiling, leaning back to sit on his bed. His gaze dances around the room until it lands on the still-frozen kettle, and Lucas feels a laugh bubbling up inside of his chest like sparkling wine.

“It is only life,” Lucas murmurs to himself, and it’s both true and completely untrue, because some things are far more complex than their own basic natures and some things are so like other things that they cannot be described as themselves at all. They can only be described in the grandest terms, in pieces of metaphor that melt on eager tongues like sweets.

Life is like a river that you have no choice but to follow.

Love is like an ocean that no one will ever see the bottom of.

Lucas Lallemant sits on his unmade bed with the advice of a wooden solider reverberating in his head and an ice-covered kettle staring at him accusatorially from the stove and a dinner invitation from a knight in shining armour, and he can’t stop smiling.

This, of course, is how Yann finds him, carrying two bottles of red wine and bursting in through Lucas’ door. He takes one look around the room, eyes stuttering over the kettle, and lands on Lucas, who’s giggling into a corner of his blanket.

Yann blinks, closes the door, and says, “I don’t even want to know.” He steps further into the room and mutters to himself, “What is it about Christmas that makes everyone turn strange?”

The storm is a real snow storm, a Christmas present to Paris from east of the Rhine, and it is also a metaphor, a swirling chaos of snow between two hearts, but the point is that both of these storms are at Lucas’ heels when he and Yann arrive at Eliott Demaury’s home at two in the afternoon, the collars of their coats pulled up tightly around their ears, their fingers red and numb from the cold.

Demaury’s home sits in the north-west end of Paris, a corner of the city Lucas has been in before, a few times, but on a street he’s never seen: one filled with tall, uniform apartment buildings that overlook small, square gardens, the street lined with young trees and flickering gaslights.

Demaury’s address is on the ground floor of one particularly handsome building, directly across from a small park and with large, bayed windows. There’s a green wreath hanging on his front door: thick evergreen braided with dark red ribbon. From just behind the door, Lucas thinks he can hear the sounds of boisterous laughter and clinking glass. Yann rings Demuary’s bell and the pair of them turn to face the street, watching a group of children playing in a small park, under the watch of a pair of hawk-eyed au pairs _._

“Do you think Demaury’s neighbours will summon the police if they see us?” Lucas wonders aloud.

“I think they might if they see me,” Yann says, a wry twist to his mouth. He tilts his head down to look at Lucas. “Don’t you think it’s strange, that he’s invited all of us?”

Lucas fidgets on the spot. “No. I don't know. I think he’s lonely.”

“Hm. Well, I couldn’t fault him for that,” Yann says softly. A snowflake gets caught in his eyelashes, and melts down his cheek like a tear. “It’s still a bit odd to me, though. I’ve never heard of anyone going to their landlord’s home for Christmas dinner.”

Lucas bites down on his lip. There’s a part of him that wants to tell Yann about all of it, about how it was only Lucas that Demaury wanted to invite, at first, and about how, possibly, Lucas may have said yes to that invitation.

What he says is, “He seems kind.”

Yann’s entire body swivels to face Lucas. “What?” He lets out a loud laugh. “Lucas, I think that may be the most forgiving thing I’ve ever heard you say about anyone outside of the theatre.”

Lucas’ face feels warm, even under the frosty touch of the fading December afternoon. He kicks at the ground. _When is someone going to answer the door?_ He tries rapping his knuckles forcibly against it. “Daphné and Manon are fond of him.”

“I know,” Yann says, his voice buoyed by teasing mirth. “Daphné talks about him all the time. How generous he is. How intelligent he is. How _very_ handsome he is.”

Lucas burrows his face further into the collar of his coat. “I don’t know why she thinks that would be pertinent information.” He says flatly.

“Yes, me neither,” Yann hums, swaying on the spot. “But she told me something else.”

“Dare I even ask?”

“She told me,” Yann grins widely, “that he’s a regular client of yours."

He says it at the same moment Demaury’s front door opens, and there’s an older man standing there, with silver hair, an impeccably tailored suit and a red hat sitting askew on the top of his head.

“Apologies, sirs.” His cheeks are flushed. “There is…a great deal of noise. We did not hear the bell ring.” He steps aside and sweeps an arm out. “Welcome. May I take your coats?”

“Thank you very much…” Yann leaves an opening for a name as they cross the threshold, a trail of snow following them inside, clumps of it coming off of their boots and melting into the thick, expensive-looking rug in Demaury’s entryway.

“Étienne,” the man says as he shuts the heavy door behind them. “I work for the Demaury family. You must be sirs Lallemant and Cazas.”

Yann nods, shrugging out of his coat. “Are we the last ones to arrive?”

“You are.”Étienne smiles at them. “We’ll begin serving dinner within the hour, but I think you’ll find the rest of the guests are already feeling…exuberantly festive.”

Yann snorts a laugh. He claps Étienne on the shoulder and holds up a bottle of wine. “Well, we’ve brought more provisions if they’re needed.”

“I think Eli will appreciate that.” Étienne says, and it takes Lucas a moment to realize that he’s talking about Demaury.

At the far end of the hall, there’s a delighted shriek, and Lucas can see Daphné barrelling towards them, holding a wine glass aloft like it’s a guiding torch. She’s wearing a velvet dress in a deep burgundy, her hair is loose around her shoulders and, coming down the candlelit hallway like this, she looks like a character from that one popular English novel everyone talks about, the one with the ghosts that come visiting in the night to show you every Christmas you’ve ever known.

“Yann! Lucas! You’re finally here!”

She pulls them both into a strong-armed hug, tugging them away from the door and further into the welcome heat of Demuary’s home, the sounds of laughter growing louder with each step down the hallway.

“They say there’s a storm coming,” Daphné says, adjusting her grip on Lucas and sloshing some wine down his shoulder. “A snow storm! On Christmas! How fantastic is that?”

“Like something from a story,” Yann agrees, grinning.

Lucas is distracted from their conversation by taking in the details of Demaury’s home. He wonders if there’s anything he can discover about him, any secrets than can be unearthed from the navy blue colour of the walls, or the portrait of a sweet-faced woman hanging above a table adorned with red-flowered plants.

The hallway opens, to a long, high-ceilinged living room, with another thick and richly coloured carpet, and gold tassel trying back curtains that look beautiful enough to wear as cloaks. There’s a Christmas tree in one corner of the room, tall and wide and covered in small, tapered candles, with baubles hanging unevenly from branches as though it was decorated in a hurry. On the other side of the room there’s a fireplace, deep and set in dark stone and roaring, the flames casting the room in an orange glow. There are more paintings on the walls: scenes of streets and people and the seaside, one in particular that catches Lucas’ eye of ballet dancers stretching, their faces turned away from the eyes of the painter. And as much art as there is on the walls, there is more on the floor: stacks of canvases pushed into corners, piles of sketches strewn across table tops. This, more than anything else he’s seen, fascinates him. Of all the businessmen that come toLucas to have their cards read, he cannot imagine that any one of them would ever have a home like this.

Especially not one currently overrun by Hercule Barnet’s troupe of extraordinary beings.

But there they are, occupying straight-backed chairs and deep green sofas that have been pulled from any semblance of order into a messy circle at the centre of the room. Idriss seems to be coming to the tail end of a story that is making Emma, Alexia and Basile laugh uproariously, Imane is deep in conversation with someone Lucas doesn’t recognize, a young man with dark hair and a handsome smile, and Arthur is leaning back in an armchair, playing Tchaikovsky on the violin. There are bottles of wine on the floor and feet propped up onto armrests and it’s all at once chaotic and welcoming, and Lucas finds himself smiling before they even notice him.

Then Daphné saunters back into the room, and as everyone turns to greet her they spot Lucas and Yann hovering in the hallway. They raise half-full glasses and give varied cries of _Merry Christmas_ , waving them in with cheers as though the last time they all saw each other was two years ago rather than two days.

“Where’s—” Lucas begins, then cuts himself off, clamping his teeth down sharply against the rest of the question, hoping no one heard him, but of course, Yann is raising a knowing eyebrow at him and he’s opening his mouth like he’s about to say something teasing in response and Lucas is _not_ above killing him to ensure his silence, even if it is Christmas.

But, as though Lucas could summon him with only a word, there he is, coming out of another hallway that tapers off from the living room, likely to a dining room or kitchen, because he’s holding a platter of food and talking excitedly with Manon, who’s carrying a large silver bowl.

Eliott Demaury’s eyes land on him the moment he steps into the room and he breaks out into a wide, please smile.

Lucas’ mouth twitches in response.

“Oh, Lucas! You’re here!” Manon calls happily as she crosses the room, setting the bowl down on a table. It’s filled with punch, something warm and spiced and smelling so strongly of red wine that Lucas and already taste the start of a hangover. Manon kisses him on both his cheeks, gripping his hands. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Lucas says, squeezing her hands in return, his eyes travelling over Manon’s shoulder to Demaury, who has forgone the table to pass his plate of food directly to Basile and Idriss.

“You should see the food,” Manon tells him excitedly. “Jacques and Mathilde are still preparing the main course but there’s already so much! I tried to get in there to help them but they forced me out.”

“They’re perfectionists.”

The sound of Demaury’s voice makes Lucas jump on the spot. He quickly smoothes a hand down the front of his suit jacket (the only suit jacket he owns, which only ever appears during holidays) while Manon turns towards Demaury with a wide grin.

Demaury himself looks sheepish to be interrupting the conversation, his head bobbing low on his shoulders and his cheeks a pale pink. He’s wearing a full suit, with a forest green waistcoat and a crisp white shirt, but instead of being slicked back like it normally is, his hair is wild, sticking up in small, messy spikes.

Lucas wants to touch it.

“You have a lovely home, Monsieur Demaury,” he says pleasantly, clasping his hands behind his back.

“Thank you Monsieur de la Lune,” Demaury returns, just as pleasantly, mirroring Lucas’ posture.

Manon’s eyes are darting back and forth between them, a crease forming in her brow, but then Daphné is coming up behind her, wrapping her arms around her waist and smacking an obnoxious kiss to her cheek, and the expression clears, replaced by pure contentedness.

“Hello,” Manon murmurs, craning her neck backwards for Daphné to kiss her. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?”

Daphné smiles into another kiss. “You have, but you can tell me again.”

“Please,” Lucas groans. “Take it somewhere dark and private.”

“Oh, I plan to,” Daphné says lowly, wiggling her eyebrows, and Manon bursts into laughter.

Demaury is staring at the pair of them with what could only be described as fondness. “You know,” he says, “I’ve never asked. How long have you two been together?”

“Two years.” Daphné and Manon reply in unison, grinning at each other.

“And they’ve been unbearable ever since.” Lucas sighs.

Manon swats at him. “Don’t be rude.”

“It’s not always easy, though.” Daphné tells Demaury while Lucas swats back at Manon. She shakes her head. “This world can be a… frightening place, for people like us. But we’re very lucky we found each other.”

Demaury nods. “I know,” he says quietly. Then, almost at a whisper. “I know.” His face is a tapestry of emotion, an entire unspoken history there, and Lucas finds himself being handed yet another piece of Eliott Demuary. Another part of him that Lucas wants to unwrap and smooth his fingers over, to learn it the way he learnt his cards.

Daphné squeezes Eliott’s arm. “We’ve found each other. All of us.” She uses her free hand to gesture around the room, to the uneven circle of chairs, where Emma has taken her shoes off and now has her feet on Alexia’s lap, and where Idriss and Basile have nearly cleared off the plate Demaury just handed them. “We take care of each other, we love each other, and that’s always been the antidote for fear. And now,” she grins, releasing his arm to pat him on the cheek. “We’ve found you.”

Demaury looks like he might cry.

Lucas feels as though he might as well. He remembers when he was first taken in by Barnet, thrown into the world of spectacle and smoke and mirrors and warm coins pressed into palms with whispered requests, and he had been so scared—determined, but scared—and the very first day there, he stepped onto the theatre stage and had been greeted by a veritable whirlwind of welcoming warmth.

He remembers weeks later, sitting in his curtained room with Manon, when she reached over to take his hand and gently said, _Me too, Lucas._

“We’re collecting them,” Manon says, and it does the job and breaking the sweet ache of the moment, all of them bursting into light-headed laughter.

“If you’ll excuse us now,” Daphné says primly, tugging Manon away by the hand. “We’re going to check if they need any more help in the kitchen, and then we’re going to find that dark, private corner.”

She gives a wave over her shoulder as the disappear down the hallway, and, for the first time that night, Lucas is alone with Demaury.

Well, alone in a room filled by Lucas’ patchwork family.

“You look nice tonight,” Demaury tells him, and Lucas feels his cheeks warm, but he doesn’t duck his head away from Demaury’s gaze. He lets his eyes roam over him, starting from the lowest button of his waistcoat and ending at the top of his head.

“So do you.”

There’s the sounds of singing coming from the circle now, Emma and Alexia butchering the words of a Christmas carol over Arthur’s violin, and Lucas snorts in amusement.

“Bet you’re happy you invited all of us.”

Demaury beams at him. “I am.”

“Well, just wait. The drunker they get the more entertaining they get,” Lucas says sagely, and Demaury lets out a laugh.

The low, warm light in the room catches on the teasing glint in Demaury’s eyes. “Does that go for you as well?”

Lucas bites down on a grin. He shrugs. “Pour me a glass of punch and find out.”

So, that’s exactly what Demaury does.

Somehow, all of them manage to go through the entire punch bowl, and Lucas finds himself floating in a hazy, pleasant place, where he finds it more difficult than usual to not stare at Eliott Demaury, but also finds that he doesn’t care if he is staring. He doesn’t even feel like stopping himself.

He doesn’t think anyone notices, thinks they all must be feeling just as hazy as he is, until someone appears next to him, sliding into the spot on the sofa that Alexia vacated just moments before.

It’s the young man, the one Lucas saw talking to Imane when he first entered the room. Dark, curly hair, handsome smile. Distractingly straight teeth. Really, he has very nice teeth.

“I’m Sofiane,” the young man says, holding a hand out to shake. “I’m a friend of Eliott’s.”

“Oh, hello.” Lucas wipes away a dribble of punch from his chin and takes the offered hand.

“You’re the fortune teller.”

Lucas blinks. “What makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen your posters.”

“Oh.” Lucas lets out a tiny giggle. “I always forget about those.” It’s true. Sometimes Lucas will turn a street corner and be met with his own likeness, staring down at him from a billeted wall. It’s a bit unnerving. It’s like there’s nowhere Lucas can go in Paris without encountering a ghost of himself.

Sofiane’s smile widens. “And Eliott told me about you.”

Lucas nearly chokes on a sip of punch.

“Really?” He says, his voice coming out in a high-pitched squeak that makes him wince.

Sofiane nods, folding his hands together under his chin.

“And what did, ah—” Lucas takes another sip of punch. _I don’t need to know. I really don’t. I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know._ “What did he say?” _Fuck._

“Just that he went to get his fortune read,” Sofiane says lightly. “By this,” he wiggles his fingers in the air, widening his eyes, “ _mysterious_ , gifted young man.”

“I’m not mysterious.” It comes out defensive, and Lucas isn’t sure why he says it because he is mysterious, or rather, Lucian de la Lune is mysterious. He’s supposed to be. “I play a character,” he says, gesturing at the circle around them. “We all do.” And then, hesitantly, carefully, “I don’t know if he knows that.”

Sofiane shakes his head. “I think he does. And I think, for him, that’s where the real mystery lies.”

Lucas frowns at him, but Sofiane just winks, clapping him on the shoulder.

From the hallway leading to the dining room, an older woman with flaming red hair pokes her head into the room, a wide, lopsided smile on her face.

“Alright you lot of miscreants,” she calls out. “Dinner is served.”

The cheer that roars up from the living room in response is deafening.

It’s a feast unlike anything Lucas has ever seen before.

Eliott Demaury’s dining room table is laden down with food, so much of it that there’s barely room for place settings. There are bowls full of potatoes, glistening and smelling of thyme, a roasted duck and roasted goose at the centre of the table, surrounded with root vegetables and collared greens. There are at least three loafs of bread cut into thick slices, a sizzling fish platter drenched in a rich sauce, and an artfully cut cheese selection that’s been designed to look like a Christmas tree.

“I never like to do courses,” the red-headed woman, who must be Mathilde says, placing her hands on her hips. “Everything should come out at once, and enjoyed how each person wants to enjoy it. Except for dessert. That comes later.”

“I think I’m in love with you,” Idriss tells her solemnly and she cackles, patting him on the cheek.

“Don’t tell my husband that.”

Her husband, Jacques, a man with an impressive grey moustache, is still bringing out food, setting dishes down on any available surface. The table is long and narrow, covered in a dark green tablecloth and surrounded by mismatched chairs.

They sit down in a rush, clambering over one another to find seats, spilling wine onto the floor and nearly knocking some dishes off of the table. Sofiane disappears from Lucas’ side to claim a spot next to Imane, something that both Idriss and Lucas notice: Lucas with amusement, and Idriss with a glare. The only person who doesn’t react at all is Imane, who daintily unfolds a napkin onto her lap and looks entirely pleased with herself.

Lucas pulls out a corner chair for himself, and as he goes to sit down, Demaury is there, pushing in Lucas’ chair for him and then claiming the seat beside him.

“Do you mind?” He asks, and Lucas shakes his head, hiding a smile into the palm of his hand.

At the other and of the table, Mathilde and Jacques have been joined by Étienne, the three of them sharing a bottle of champagne and passing along Étienne’s red hat.

“Do they always eat with you?” Lucas asks.

Demaury looks up from the roasted squash he’s attempting to spear with a fork, following Lucas’ eye line.

“Oh,” he says, blinking. “Well, yes. I know it’s…” He frowns. “Uncommon, amongst families like mine. But my mother always had them eat with us, when I was a boy. My father didn’t like it so much but now that I run the household…” Étienne raises his glass at Demaury and he smiles, nodding at him. “Well, I grew up with them.” He waves his fork around. “They’re my family, just as all of you are family.”

“Not by blood,” Lucas says, “but by bond.”

“Exactly.”

They stare at each other over the plate steaming vegetables at Demaury’s elbow, both of them thinking about family and friends and people who fall into neither of those categories, when, on the other side of Lucas, there’s the sudden, sharp sound of a spoon being knocked against a glass.

It’s Basile, rising from his chair with a flourish. “Hear ye!” He cries, and is met with a chorus of boos. He waves them off until they quiet down, then he holds his glass aloft. “I think I speak for all of us when I say this is probably the best Christmas meal any of us have ever had.”

This time, instead of boos, his words rouse a chorus of cheers, more glasses being raised.

“And,” Basile yells over the din, “I think I speak for all of us when I say that we demand a Christmas toast from our devilishly handsome host!”

Another round of cheers, this one coupled with fists beating against the table and calls of, _Go on, Eliott!_

Lucas joins in, clapping his hands together and cackling when he sees Demaury’s face. He looks as though he’d like nothing more than to throw himself into a snowbank rather than make a toast. But the cheering surges on, and Yann reaches over to slap him on the shoulder and Demaury is folding his napkin onto the table and standing from his chair, shaking his head at Basile and straightening his jacket.

“Alright,” Demaury begins, and the cheering dies down, an anticipatory silence falling over the table. He clears his throat. “Well, I, I want to thank all of you for coming to this dinner. I didn’t know many of you before tonight, and I appreciate you having enough faith in me to turn up. And I…” He presses a hand over his chest. “I’m so happy to have met you.” There’s a series of groans and he laughs, waving a placating hand out. “I mean it! For so long, this house hasn’t seen any guests at all—”

“Apart from me!” Sofiane calls out and Demaury nods.

“Of course, apart from Sofiane. But for us, Christmas was always a bit lonely, wasn’t it?” He directs this at Étienne, Jacques, and Mathilde. “The house is quiet the entire year, but I believe we never feel it more than we do during Christmas and now, well.” He picks up his wine glass from the table. “You’ve all brought it to life again.” Then, his eyes travel to Lucas. “I’m beginning to think that there are certain people we’re meant to meet in life, for one reason or another. They alter us, in some way we can never go back from. In a way we don’t want to go back from.”

Lucas can scarcely breathe.

Gods, if Eliott Demaury has never looked more like the Knight of Cups than he does now. Famed, fated, and bursting into Lucas’ life to change everything.

 _Eliott Demaury_ , he thinks, a little awed. Then, _Eliott_.

Eliott inclines head at Manon and Daphné. “Thank you for bringing such incredible people into our world.”

Daphné blows him a kiss.

“So, a toast.” Eliott continues, raising his glass. “To finding each other. Merry Christmas.”

The table echoes _Merry Christmas_ , glasses clinking together and kisses being pressed to the tops of cheeks.

“Alright,” Eliott says, sweeping an arm out, “let’s eat!”

After that, it’s the sound of silver knives scraping against plates, delighted groans and muffled praises being hailed down to Jacques and Mathilde. Lucas helps himself to a little bit of everything, and he becomes aware halfway through the meal that Eliott is continuously checking his reactions, to see if he likes everything.

The attention makes him flustered, but it also makes him give over-exaggerated groans with every bite, which in turn makes Eliott flustered, and that pleases Lucas to no end.

None of them notice the snow until the meal has almost finished, until they’re beginning to stack dirty dishes and carry them into the kitchen, and Alexia gasps, pointing one hand at the window, at the wall of white just beyond it, snowfall so thick that nothing can be discerned from the landscape. There is just stark white against the evening darkness, and only a swirling wind existing between the two.

“That will be interesting to walk home in,” Yann mutters, peering out the window.

“I don’t know if ‘interesting’ is the word I would use,” Imane says dryly.

“You’re not walking home in that!” It’s Mathilde, standing at the entrance of the dining room and clutching an empty bowl, looking horrified. “Eliott!” She says, when he comes walking in behind her. “Tell them they can stay.”

Eliott blinks at her, then up at the window, then down to all of them gathered at the end of the table.

“Of course you can stay,” he says, as though it’s the most obvious thing.

And perhaps, it is.

They move back to the living room for dessert, putting more logs on the fire and sprawling out over the sofas and chairs with slices of tarte tatin and piles of miniature cakes. They move on from the punch, Arthur opening a flask of sherry he claims to have been saving just for the right moment, and Étienne appears with a bottle of cointreau he seemingly magicked out of nowhere.

Eliott, Mathilde, and Jacques disappear upstairs to ready the guest rooms, after Eliott assures a concerned Manon that they have plenty of room for everyone.

“We have all three floors,” he says, pointing towards a staircase in the main hallway that Lucas hadn’t even noticed when he first passed it by. “Believe me, there’s enough space.”

With all of the food consumed, and the liquor still being poured, the night has taken on a less pristine turn, as nights of merriment are wont to do. The men have all lost their jackets, and are, if they haven’t already, in the process of untying their ties. No one is wearing shoes anymore.

It feels strangely comfortable to Lucas, sitting on Eliott Demuary’s living room floor with his back against an arm chair, his socked feet crossed in front of him at the ankle, Emma playing lazily with his hair.

Basile has fallen asleep in his chair, and Daphné has fallen asleep on Manon’s shoulder. Idriss, Yann and Alexia are giggling about something on one sofa, while on another, Imane and Sofiane talk quietly as Arthur plays another song on the violin, something that Lucas doesn’t recognize, something that’s sweet, but a bit melancholy, strangely appropriate for the candlelit evening that now yawns with tired eyes as the clock in Eliott’s entryway chimes past midnight.

Imane moves from the sofa to sit next to Lucas on the floor, her white dress fanning out around her like snow. Emma smiles at her arrival, reaching out her other hand to stroke over Imane’s head.

“I love you all,” Emma says happily, drunkenly, and Imane laughs into her hand.

“Love you too, Emma.” She and Lucas respond in unison.

“I’ve barely talked to you all night,” Lucas murmurs. Imane nods, offering him a piece of cake he accepts with a grin.

“I know. We’ve been too preoccupied eating.”

“I’m not unhappy about that,” Lucas mumbles around his mouthful of cake.

“No,” Imane says with a contended sigh. “Me neither.”

They sit in silence together only for a moment, before Imane moves her head closer to Lucas.

“Eliott seems kind.”

Lucas snorts. “For a rich man?”

“For anyone.”

Lucas bobs his head side to side. “He does, doesn’t he?” He says quietly. Then he raises his eyebrows. “Sofiane also seems very kind. For…anyone.”

Imane makes a face at him. “Stop it.”

“You started it.”

She opens her mouth to reply, probably with a devastating blow to Lucas’ ego, which is what he can usually expect from her at any given time, but before she can say it, Eliott comes bounding into the room, his jacket missing, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Lucas _stares_. He thinks his mouth may be hanging open a little bit.

He can practically feel the force of Imane’s smirk.

“I have rooms ready,” Eliott announces, clapping his hands together. “There are three available, and one of the three has two beds, so as long as everyone is comfortable getting a bit close, then we should be fine.”

“Eliott,” Alexia says with a smile. “Trust me when I say we’ve slept in far more close quarters than this.”

“Right,” Eliott lets out a small laugh. “I’ve also laid out any extra nightclothes we were able to find in the rooms, so everyone can be comfortable.”

A series of happy groans rise from the floor.

“What a prince you are,” Emma says dreamily. “A knight in shining armour.”

At this, Lucas’ eyes snap up to Eliott, who’s already looking back at him, his mouth curled into a lopsided smile.

“I do my best,” Eliott says.

Manon and Daphné go first, Manon pulling a tired, grumpy Daphné out of the room by both hands, blowing a kiss over her shoulder and wishing them all a final Merry Christmas.

Basile goes next, claiming that he has to “give up the fight” against an exhausting overindulgence in food and alcohol.

Imane and Alexia haul the now clean dessert plates into the kitchen and when they come back, they too drift off to bed, Emma following behind them after only a few minutes.

Lucas feels like he’s waiting, and he doesn’t know for what, but Eliott seems to be doing it to, hovering by the entryway, wishing everyone goodnight and Merry Christmas as they pass, his eyes periodically drifting back to Lucas, then darting away again.

There’s an expectation, from both of them, but neither of them know what it’s an expectation _for_.

The desire to be close, perhaps. To talk. To share each other’s space. To give agency to the thing that’s been building between them like a growing storm from the very moment they met outside of Lucas’ room.

Eliott crosses the room to add another log onto the fire, lit up in bright, flickering orange, and Lucas can’t stop staring at his forearms, at the muscles and the prominent veins there. His mind is loose, tired and fuzzy from alcohol, and, for one moment, he can see those arms so clearly wrapped around himself, those hands spanning across his skin like they’re desperate to memorize Lucas by touch.

The fire snaps, sudden sparks spurting out into the room and Eliott leaps back, iron poker held aloft like it can defend him from rogue fires.

“Eliott, are you alright?” Arthur asks, sitting up from where he had collapsed against the arm of the sofa, but Eliott waves him off.

“It’s nothing. Just need to be more careful.”

Lucas shuts his eyes tightly. _Stop it_ , he orders himself, his mind and his magic, the energy humming underneath his skin. _Calm down._ He looks down to his lap and realizes that the glass he’s holding has, impossibly, begun to sprout wildflowers from its stem.

He swears under his breath, rising from the floor and heading right for the kitchen, forcing himself to take slow, even steps rather than run there, his heart beating so fast it feels like its lodged itself at the base of his skull.

 _No one can ever know_. This is what Maman always told him. _No one can ever know_.

The kitchen is dark and empty, illuminated only by pale light coming in from a single window, where the snow storm rages on. He places the glass down on the countertop, next to a dirty stack of dessert plates, and through the darkness, he can just make out the flowers that are still blooming, petals opening up towards him.

He closes his eyes. Inhales. Exhales. He tries focusing on the tree he’s pictured before, strong and ancient and constant. He tries to picture Maman’s face, watch her mouth form the words, _Don’t let it control you._

When he opens his eyes again, the flowers are wilting, falling away from the stem of the glass as they die, shrivelling up when they touch the counter top. Lucas is at once relieved to see them go, to be able to go another day as a hidden thing, but at the same time it hurts his heart to see them die. He’s never done anything like that before, conjured something from nothing at all. He’s never made anything like. He wonders if he could ever do it again.

But he can feel the minutes passing,and he knows the longer he’s gone the stranger it will seem, so he sweeps the dried flowers into his hand and dumps them into the wash bin. A dream to be left for another day. Another lifetime.

When he returns to the living room, it’s to see Sofiane and Eliott talking by the fireplace, and Yann and Arthur heading towards the stairs.

“Lucas,” Arthur greets around a yawn, rubbing one eye under his glasses. “We’re going to bed. Are you coming?”

Lucas spares a glance back into the living room, to Sofiane saying something intently to Eliott, to Eliott listening, but raising his eyes to look back at him, a though he could feel Lucas’ gaze like a touch.

“Lucas? You coming?”

Lucas blinks, and looks away. “Uh, yes. Yes. Let’s go.”

Arthur calls out a final goodnight, Lucas steals one last glance at Eliott, and then they’re gone, climbing the stairs in a sleepy silence.

The upstairs floor is vastly different from the living room. Here, the walls are covered in a neat, stylish wallpaper and family portraits line the hallway. It’s more what Lucas would expect from a family like the Demaury’s, something traditional and colourless, but by now he knows that what he would normally expect isn’t what he should expect at all from Eliott, and this part of Eliott’s home feels nothing at all like him.

“Eliott said it’s one more floor,” Arthur murmurs, and they follow another staircase up to a hallway that looks exactly the same as the one below them, only smaller. There are three oak doors there, each one closed and dark, but Arthur confidently goes for the one on the left, and when they open it, they find a small fireplace that’s been stoked to life, and two wide beds, one of which is already occupied by Idriss and Basile. On the other bed, there are three sets of nightshirts folded neatly onto the blanket.

“Well this is something,” Yann laughs, going to one of the piles and picking it up, making a face at the embroidered initials on the chest. “Honestly,” he says with a sigh, but he strips down and puts in on anyway, collapsing onto the bed when he’s fully changed. “I’m so _fucking_ tired,” he groans into a pillow.

“It’s all the wine,” Arthur whispers, reaching for the second nightshirt. “And the sherry. And the cointreau.”

Lucas takes the final pile, which, he realizes when he throws it on, is far too large for him, gaping open at the collar, the cuffs falling over his hands. He neatly folds his, Arthur’s and Yann’s clothes onto the wooden desk in the far corner of the room, and then goes to the bed, sliding under the blankets and turning onto his side.

Yann and Arthur seems to fall asleep right away, Yann pressing up behind Lucas and snoring softly in his ear, Arthur’s breath evening out until Lucas can barely hear it. Lucas had thought he would fall asleep the same way, given how heavy his feet felt on the climb up to their room, how slow his body was moving, but now that he’s lying down in the dark, his mind is wide awake, bursting with thoughts about the flowers on the wine glass, the crackling fire, Eliott’s eyes and Eliott’s smile and Eliott’s hands and forearms, and how now, in Lucas’ mind, he calls him _Eliott_ instead of _Demuary_.

He shuts his eyes, willing himself to fall into the nothingness of sleep.

On the other bed, Basile turns over and begins to snore. Loudly.

Lucas shuts his eyes even tighter. _Just fall asleep_ , he tells himself. _Just let go._

But he can’t, and the longer Lucas lays awake in bed, with Yann’s sherry-tinged breath close to his face and Basile’s snores echoing in his ears, the more agitated he becomes and the faster his thoughts swirl, until there’s no distinction between the inside of his head and the snow still falling outside.

He needs to do something.

He needs.

He needs the cards.

He slides out of the blanket, managing to dislodge himself from Yann without disturbing him, and pads over to his pile of clothes, fishing his deck of cards out from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. It’s instantly calming to hold them in his hands, to feel their current of energy rise up to meet his own. It feels like what he needs to be doing.

So, he clutches the deck tightly in one hand and lets himself out of the room. He ventures back down the stairs, to the other floor of bedrooms, which is as silent and dark as he suspects the rest of the house is by now. His eyes travel over each closed door, and he wonders which one is Eliott’s. He wonders if Eliott is asleep behind one of those doors, wrapped up in blankets and free from his thoughts. Or, he wonders if Eliott is awake like he is, feeling like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff, constantly teetering between the safe, flat ground and the drop.

He takes the stairs down to the ground floor. All of the candles in the living room have been extinguished, and the fire is burning low, dark orange embers simmering underneath charred wood. As he crosses to it, Lucas can see that the furniture has been moved back around, so the arm chairs sit in a a neat circle in once corner of the room, one of the sofas is against a wall, and the other faces the fireplace. It’s freezing down there, with the lack of fire. Lucas feels entirely underdressed just in the nightshirt, but the idea of going back up to the room and changing into his suit is too unappealing to even consider, so he wraps his arms around himself and finds another log.

He stokes the fire until it’s roaring back to life, crackling heartily and bathing the room in a warm glow. At first he goes to the sofa, but changes his mind, sinking to floor to bring himself closer to the heat of the fire. He rubs his hands together, blowing warm air on them once before returning to the deck of cards. He shuts his eyes as he shuffles them, letting the chaos of his thoughts overpower him rather than try to fight against it.

 _Tell me something_ , he thinks, the cards flitting through his hands swiftly, easily, each touch bringing him a new voice that sinks into his skin. _Help me make sense of it._

A creaking floorboard pulls him out of his meditation like a hand would pull someone from deep, still water, and Lucas is blinking at the space in front of him confused, then turning around to see Eliott standing at the entrance to the living room, wearing a richly-coloured smoking jacket and holding a cup of something steaming.

“Oh,” Eliott says, surprised. He gestures with the cup back to where he came from. “I was making some tea, and I thought I heard someone come in here and…” His eyes travel down to the Lucas’ hands, to the cards frozen in mid-shuffle. “I don’t mean to interrupt you. I’ll return to my room.”

“No,” Lucas protests, surprising both himself and Eliott with how forceful the word comes out. “No,” he says more softly. He gestures at the space across from him. “Come. Sit.”

Eliott hesitates, only for a moment, but he comes, stopping in front of Lucas and sinking to the floor, crossing his legs under him like a child would.

“If you really would prefer me to leave,” he says, “I can.”

The firelight casts shadows across his face, sharpening his cheekbones and the angle of his nose, turning him into something different than he normally is, something that would be ancient and unknowable, if it were not for his eyes, with their constant honesty and openness.

Now that he’s there, in front of him, Lucas thinks it feels inevitable that this happened, like the night was always going to end with the two of them sitting across from each other, lit by firelight and speaking in whispers.

“I’d like you to stay,” he says, firmly, with no space for ambiguity.

Eliott smiles, pleased, and Lucas’ heart curls in on itself like it too has become shy when faced with his attention.

“Well then,” Eliott says, rising from the floor. He turns down the hallway towards the kitchen, and returns with a wool blanket in his arms.

“Here,” he murmurs, dropping down to his knees to wrap it around Lucas’ shoulders. “You look cold.”

“Thank you,” Lucas says softly. Eliott smoothes the blanket over his shoulders, his hands somehow warm even through the layer of wool, and gentle, as gentle as Lucas expected them to be when he first saw Eliott touch the cards.

The blanket is warm, but Lucas shivers.

Eliott sits in front of him, wrapping his smoking jacket more tightly around himself and crossing his legs again. He lifts his cup of tea from the floor, taking a long sip, and then wordlessly offering it to Lucas.

Lucas takes it. The tea is sweet and smooth, a kind that Lucas is unfamiliar with, and it’s soothing, warming him from the inside out.

“Thank you,” he says again, and Eliott just smiles in response, the two of them staring at each other over the steaming cup.

“Can I ask what you were doing?” Eliott says quietly, gesturing at the cards. “Or is that private?”

Lucas takes another sip from the tea and passes it back to him. “It’s private, I suppose, but it’s…I do it often. I was asking the cards to make sense of what’s going on inside of my head.”

Eliott’s eyebrows furrow together. “What’s going on inside of your head?”

Lucas huffs a laugh. “Too many things.”

“Ah.” Eliott sets the tea cup back down on the floor. “I’m familiar with that.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Lucas says. “So I came down here to…talk to them.”

“Is that what it’s like?” There’s open curiosity painted across Eliott’s face, but also hesitancy there, like this is a line of questioning he’s not sure he’s allowed to broach. “You speak to the cards?”

Lucas starts shuffling them again, something slow and basic, just letting himself feel them. He watches them move, and Eliott watches Lucas watch them, and after a moment he says at length, “They speak to me.”

Eliott nods, as though this makes perfect sense to him. “How long have you known how to do this?”

Lucas lifts a shoulder, flipping a card over in his hand at random at nearly rolling his eyes when he sees that it’s the Magician, the card he used to always pull for himself. “I learned when I was very young.” He turns the Magician back over, folding him into the deck. “My mother taught me.”

He doesn’t say any more than that, because he’s not sure he should, and he’s not even sure he wants to. There’s too much he could tell Eliott Demuary about his childhood, about his mother, and about who he really is, and just the knowledge that he could tell Elliot these things frightens him into silence.

But Eliott picks up the end of Lucas’ confession, and gives one of his own.

“My mother was a painter,” he says, smiling softly. “She taught me a lot about it when I was a boy. Through her, I fell in love with art.” He smiles shyly, gesturing at the wider room. “You can probably see that it’s become a bit of an obsession.”

Lucas feels his lips curl up in response, glancing at the walls even though he can barely make out the pictures. “Did you do all of these yourself?”

“Oh, god no!” Eliott laughs. “No, some of these are by people who sell in the markets, and some are by artists who are quite popular right now. I’m in a very lucky position where I am in possession of connections and a bit of money,” he says with a sheepish shrug. “But,” he points at a round table on the other side of the room, “the sketches are all mine.”

“Really?” Lucas is at once desperate to leap over to that table and pour over the details of this new piece of Eliott he’s been offered. “What do you sketch?”

“Whatever inspires me.”

“Would you ever sketch me?” Lucas asks, raising his eyebrows, biting down on a grin.

Eliott takes another sip of tea. “Who says I haven’t already?”

Lucas freezes in his shuffling again, one card poised between the tip of two fingers. “Really,” he says, and his voice is all breath, as though his lungs have joined his treacherous heart with going useless in the presence of Eliott Demaury.

Eliott nods. “They very first day you told me my future. I thought you were interesting,” he says, his eyes dropping down to the space of floor between them. “And beautiful,” he adds, barely above a whisper.

The card that was frozen between Lucas’ fingertips flutters to the ground. He doesn’t bother to look at it.

“You thought that?” He can barely get the question out, embarrassed to be asking it, but desperate to ask it, just to make Eliott say it again.

“I _think_ that,” Eliott corrects him.

Lucas can’t stop the smile that spreads across his face, wide and beaming and unchecked. He couldn’t stop it if he wanted to.

“Maybe I think that about you as well,” he says, and Eliott’s eyes widen.

“Do you?”

“Maybe.”

“Lucas, I—” Eliott leans forward slightly. “I want to ask you something. Please.”

Heart pounding, Lucas nods.

“What would you have said, to my invitation for dinner? When it was just for you?” He's nervous as he says it, fiddling with the edges of his smoking jacket, eyes darting from Lucas’ face to the ground, to the fire, then to the card that fell out of Lucas’ hands then back again, like he can’t decide where best to look.

It’s so quiet in the room. Even the fire has stopped crackling to listen in.

 _This_ , Lucas thinks, _is what we mean we talk about the choices we make steering us onto the paths we were meant to be on all along._

“I would have,” he says.

Eliott sits back on his haunches, stunned. “Oh,” he says. “Thank you.” And then he’s smiling, and Lucas is smiling in return and they begin to giggle together, breathless and giddy until neither of them can breathe, and Eliott is groaning, _Why did I say thank you? That was so awkward._

Their giggles subside but the feeling they created lingers, light-headed and nervous and relieved. It feels good that Lucas told him, feel feels a bit like some pressure has been released from inside of his chest. He likes having Eliott know that he would have said yes, likes Eliott knowing that Lucas wanted to spend time with him. That he wants to know him.

It feels like sliding down the cliffside rather than leaping off of it.

Eliott props his chin up into one of his hands, planting his elbow on his knee. “Should we pull a card?” He asks, nodding at the deck still in Lucas’ hands. “Should we ask them what happens next?”

Lucas grins. He picks up the fallen card and returns it to the deck, closing his eyes and picking up his shuffle where he left off.

 _What happens next?_ He thinks he has an idea, and that Eliott does as well, that despite how much they’re teasing each other, they both know that they’re about to enter into a place that there’s no going back from.

They are coming upon the _after_.

(This is the _before_.)

Lucas shuffles until there’s a card, one that calls to him clearly in the muddle of voices like a ringing bell, and he takes it from the deck, turning it over and laying it down in the space between himself and Eliott.

And he wants to laugh. What else could he have expected?

The face of the card has two skeletons on it, embracing one another and wrapped in blooming vines, their hands entwined between their bent heads.

Unity. Coexistence. Love.

“The Lovers,” Lucas says, and it feels like all of the air is ripped from the room.

Eliott lets out a single, high pitched burst of laughter. “Not very subtle, are they?” He asks, his hand shifting to run through his hair.

“It’s not always so literal,” Lucas says quickly, jumping into his automatic explanation. “The Lovers oftentimes refers to a merging within the self, of two sides coming together. It could be that the person asking needs to make peace with a part of themselves that they don’t wish to acknowledge. It may also refer to spiritual growth.”

“Or love.” Eliott says, and when Lucas glances up, he sees that he’s still smiling.

“Yes. Or love.”

“How do you know which interpretation to make?”

Lucas sets the rest of the cards down, tugging the blanket more closely around himself. “Based on other cards pulled in the reading. Or based on what they’re asking about. Most people are easy to read.”

Eliott laughs. “I can only imagine.” He drops his chin back into his hand. “I must be very easy to read.”

 _You are_ , Lucas thinks. _It’s one of my favourite things about you._

Lucas releases his grip on the blanket to hold a hand out, palm up. “Give me your hand.”

Eliott automatically follows the order, shifting closer on the floor and extending his hand towards Lucas. “Why?”

“Palm reading. It’s another way to tell fortunes.” Lucas bites down on his lip when Eliott’s hand rests in his, the skin warm and soft against his own. At once it seems like a bad idea to do this, especially since Lucas barely knows anything about palm reading, but he had been sitting there, across from Eliott, and all he could think was how much he wanted to touch him.

Lucas shifts closer on the floor, rising up slightly on his knees to look down at Eliott’s palm. His eyes roam over the breadth of it, the deep lines etched into it and the details, like the small scar at the base of his thumb, another near his wrist. Lucas smoothes a finger over it, and he hears Eliott inhale sharply.

“So,” Lucas starts, tracing his finger down Eliott’s palm, “this first one is your life line. That signifies what your life may entail, any changes that may occur within it.” His finger fallows the path of another line that intersects with it, curving down the centre of his palm. “It intersects with your fate line, which means parts of your life may be controlled by destiny.” He moves his finger up, drawing it across another line, and Eliott’s hand twitches in his. “This is your head line, which indicates learning and knowledge. Yours is curved, which normally means you’re a creative person. An artist in every way.” He trails his finger up again. “And this is your heart line, and that, of course, indicates matters of the heart. Yours is quite long, and that could mean that you’re ah…passionate. You want to love, and when you do love, you completely…give…yourself away to…it.”

Lucas voice trails off, his eyes fixed on their hands, on how Eliott’s is shifting under his to grip onto his fingers, to gently tug Lucas’ hand upwards, and to press a soft kiss into his palm, closing his eyes.

Lucas' heart stops altogether.

Eliott nuzzles his face into his hand, pressing his lips again into his palm and letting out a soft sigh. Lucas feels like he’s not even sitting on the floor anymore, like he’s not even connected to the Earth. He doesn’t even exist outside of where they're touching: the press of Eliott's lips, the fall of his hair on Lucas’ knuckles.

“Eliott,” he says, and Eliott’s eyes snap open to meet his.

There’s a moment, completely silent, pulled taut like a thread, and Lucas realizes that he’s only ever said Eliott’s name once before, when he didn’t even realize he was going to say it, and that moment was nothing like this. He didn’t say it the way he does now, as though he never wants to say anything else, ever.

“Lucas,” Eliott echoes, voice pained, desperate, and he’s leaning forward, bringing his free hand up to Lucas’ face to stroke his fingers across his cheek. Lucas tilts his head into the touch, his lips parting like a reflex, and Eliott’s eyes become fixed to them. “Lucas,” Eliott says, his fingers trailing down his face to his jaw, his thumb brushing across his bottom lip. The touch makes Lucas shiver. He’s sure the fire is doing something, turning blue or releasing sparks or maybe there are flowers goring out of the walls or maybe the storm has completely stopped or it has become worse, spurned on by the thumping of Lucas’ heart, by the indescribable ecstasy of knowing what’s about to happen right before it happens, and knowing it’s going to change everything.

(The storm outside is a storm, a snow squall the likes of which has not been seen in Paris for a decade, but it is also a metaphor, a building tension between two people, two fated hearts and here _here_ —

This is where it breaks.)

“Lucas, can I please—” Eliott starts and Lucas doesn’t let him finish.

He closes the final bit of distance, and presses his lips to Eliott’s.

It’s so gentle, the touch, barely enough pressure for either of them to really feel it but they both gasp, shaking breaths that struggle to be released.

Lucas’ fingers curl against Eliott’s, his other hand coming up to gently card through the back of Eliott’s hair. Eliott's thumb continues to stroke across Lucas’ cheek, his other fingers curling around the side of his neck, and he’s so warm against Lucas. Eliott is so warm, and Lucas is thinking about a wooden solider trying to tell him about love, and how easy it is to leap from a mountain, and Lucas kisses him again, moulding his lips to the shape of Eliott’s and pressing forward until Eliott gasps again, his mouth parting under Lucas’.

Eliott drops Lucas’ hand to cup his face in both of his, tilting his head sideways to deepen the kiss even further, their mouths sliding together in a way that feels so good that it makes Lucas whimper, his head going limp in Eliott’s hands.

“Lucas,” Eliott pants, breaking off to press a kiss to his cheek, then his jaw. “Lucas, I want—”

“I know,” Lucas whispers, barely able to focus on anything other than the places where Eliott is touching him.

“I want to know you,” Eliott says in a rush, pressing another kiss to Lucas’ cheek. “Please, Lucas, that’s all I’ve ever wanted since I first saw you—”

“I know, I know. Eliott, I want that too,” Lucas says, using his grip on Eliott’s hair to bring them together in another kiss. He wraps an arm around Eliott’s shoulders to pull him as close as he possibly can, jostling the cards from their neat deck and sending them spiralling across the floor.

Gods, he didn’t know it could be like this. He had no idea that kissing Eliott Demaury would make him feel like nothing else exists in the entire universe. That now that he’s started kissing him, he doesn’t ever want to stop.

He tastes sweet, like the tea that they shared and like the desserts they had, and something else, something that tastes like spring air after the first thaw.

Sweet. Intoxicating. Eliott.

His tongue is at the seam of Lucas’ lips and he opens to it, moaning when it finds his own, the taste of him even richer there. Eliott makes a pained noise, one of his hands trailing down Lucas’ neck to his shoulders, and pushing at the blanket wrapped around him, the dark wool pooling onto the floor, leaving Lucas only in his nightshirt.

“God,” Eliott murmurs, and he’s wrapping an arm low around Lucas’ waist, kissing a line down his neck all the way to the base of his throat. “God, you’re so beautiful,” Eliott whispers into his skin, and he tugs the collar of the nightshirt aside, kissing along the newly exposed skin until he reaches the curve of Lucas’ shoulder, gently biting down on it.“I’ve wanted to do this since I first saw you in that _damn_ shirt,” Eliott groans and Lucas lets out a giggle into his hair, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“When I first saw you,” Lucas says softly into his ear, “I thought you looked like one of my cards brought to life. Like magic.”

“ _You_ are magic,” Eliott breathes, kissing his way back up to Lucas’ neck, to his jaw, to his lips. “I swear, I’ve never met anyone like you.”

They kiss again, mouths parting and heads tilting, and they’re panting into each other’s mouths now, touching each other freely, unabashedly, Eliott’s hands smoothing down Lucas’ back and curving around his hips, hauling Lucas nearly into his lap.

“Eliott,” Lucas says between one kiss and another. He feels like he’s in a dream. He feels like he could collapse into the floor and melt like wax. “Eliott.”

Eliott hums, rubbing their noses together. “What is it, love?”

Lucas yawns directly into his face.

“I’m sorry,” he groans, ducking down into Eliott’s shoulder as Eliott bursts into laughter. “I didn’t think I was this tired.”

Eliott brings a hand up to smooth Lucas’ hair away from his face. “Don’t apologize. It's been a long night for all of us.”

Lucas nods, yawning again and curling his fingers into the collar of Eliott’s smoking jacket. He could easily fall asleep there just like that, with the fire roaring at his back and Eliott’s arms wrapped around him. He can't remember when he last felt so comfortable.

Eliott presses a kiss to his temple. “Would you…” He skims his nose down the side of Lucas’ face to his ear, his lips touching it as he whispers, “Would you like to sleep down here tonight?”

Now that sounds…that sounds perfect. Lucas smiles, tilting his face up. “Can we?”

“Sure.” Eliott kisses the top of his cheekbone. “I do it…often.” Lucas giggles into his neck and Eliott lightly kisses the shell of his ear. “This is my favourite room in the house, so.”

Lucas hums, nearly groaning in protest when Eliott shifts under him, rising to his feet. “I think this is my favourite room as well. Aside from maybe your room.”

Eliott huffs a laugh, hauling Lucas up with him and pushing him gently towards the sofa.

“The way you tease me,” Eliott sighs, bending back down to gather the wool blanket. “Here, this and the fire should be enough to keep us warm.”

“You can keep me warm,” Lucas says softly, smiling, sprawling onto his back on the sofa. Eliott stops in front of him, clutching the blanket to his chest and staring down at Lucas like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. He drops the blanket at one end of the sofa and rolls onto it, gathering Lucas in his arms and pulling him into his chest.

“God, you’re like a dream,” Eliott says, dropping a kiss to Lucas’ forehead. “A dream I never want to wake up from.”

Lucas shakes his head, burrowing into Eliott’s shoulder. “I’m as real as you are.”

“Then maybe we’re both dreams. Maybe we’re both characters from your cards.”

“We can be that and also be real.” Lucas tilts his head up, resting his chin on Eliott’s chest. “But you should probably kiss me, just to be sure,” he says, and Eliott does.

They grip onto each other tightly, kissing and smiling when they’re not kissing, and yawning when they’re not smiling, fatigue finally beginning to overtake the desire to kiss and touch and watch each other with fire-lit eyes

“Let’s sleep,” Lucas orders gently, reaching for the blanket and draping it over them. “Eliott, come on. Sleep.”

Eliott sighs in agreement, wrapping an around around Lucas’ waist and spooning up behind him, pressing a kiss behind his ear.

"Merry Christmas, Lucas.”

Lucas brings Eliott’s hand up to his mouth, kissing his knuckles one by one. “Merry Christmas, Eliott.”

They fall asleep like that, wrapped tightly together and warmed by the dying fire. The clock in the entryway chimes to mark the late hour, and then the house falls completely, utterly, finally silent.

On the floor, in front of that dying fire, its glow dancing over their faces, are four cards, forming an uneven, odd little line, like they’re laying out a story, one that’s being told as they look on, but also has more to be told, changes and choices that cannot be seen, too dark and murky the future always is.

We have a young man with a gift, a messenger of spirituality and things unseen: The Magician.

We have the messenger on his white horse, a bringer of good news and favourable change: The Knight of Cups.

We have two bodies in a tight embrace, wrapped inside of flowers, destined to find each other: The Lovers.

Finally, as always, we have the harbinger of destiny itself, the promise of fate guiding you to the path you were always meant to be on, the inevitability of everything in the universe: The Wheel Of Fortune.

This is the story.

And like every story, it has a beginning, a middle, and an—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> joyeux noël mes amis ❤️

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading 🌹
> 
> on tumblr [@lepetitepeach](https://lepetitepeach.tumblr.com)


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